Despite the falling rupee against the US dollar, the import of cars has increased by 6% in the financial year 2018.
Due to a huge gap between cars supply and demand in the country, people are forced to import vehicles with good safety features and other perks, as compared to the locally produced vehicles.
Another reason, for the increase in car imports, could be the continuous increase in car prices by the local manufacturers.
Last year, the local importers imported 80,000 vehicles in the country, which shows how substantial the import market is in Pakistan.
And now as per Dawn, the import of vehicles is going strong and has gone up by 6% to $456 million spent on importing cars (three years old) in the financial year 2018. In FY 2017, $431 million was spent on car import.
Aside from the increase in import of cars, import of accessories for cars has also gone up to $809 million in the current financial year whereas, in the same period of the corresponding year, the import of accessories was around $660 million.
In the financial year 2017, the local bike assemblers imported bike parts worth $92 million whereas, in the current FY 18 they imported parts worth $106 million.
Read Also: Ministry of Finance approves fixed import duty on vintage cars
Last year in October, the government introduced SRO 1067(1)/2017, and according to the authority it was issued to curb the trade deficit of the country. But, after the issuance of SRO, it was presumed by many local used car importers that the government had banned the import of used car in the country.
Government refuted the argument and asserted that it’s false propaganda. However, there was no denying in the fact that due to the government’s sudden change in import policy, the import of cars into the country became difficult and their supply was also disrupted. But on 23rd February 2018, the Ministry of Commerce issued a new SRO 261(1)/2018 and amended the import policy once again, allowing the cars to be imported under old import policy.
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