About 452 imported re-conditioned cars with engine capacity ranging from 800 cc to 1800 cc will be cleared by the Customs authorities in next couple of days after the decision of Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the federal Cabinet.
All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association Chairman H.M. Shehzad said here on Monday the ECC meeting chaired by the prime minister two days ago had decided that imported re-conditioned cars would be cleared at a duty allowed in the Customs General Order (CGO) 10/2004 of August 31, 2004.
"We are highly thankful to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and CRR Chairman Abdullah Yousuf, who have accepted our demands and asked Customs to fully implement the said CGO", he said.
Shehzad said the Customs authorities were demanding higher import duty whereas the CGO 10/2004 had allowed the range of duty from $5,000 to $18,000 as fixed duty in dollars on the imported second-hand automobiles.
He said on the plea of car dealers, the CBR chairman has very kindly accepted our demand that duty should be levied in accordance with the CGO 10/2004, and moved a summary for the ECC.
He was of the opinion that the decision of the ECC has simplified the import of re-conditioned cars and removed the last lacuna.
Shehzad said the importers will pay about Rs 550 million to the national exchequer in duty against the import of these cars, adding earlier, importers had paid Rs 365 million to customs against the import of 336 cars with engine capacity of 800 cc to 1800 cc, and these cars were cleared from September 3 to October 5, 2004.
He claimed that importers will pay Rs 20 billion to the national exchequer per annum against the import of reconditioned cars.