Pir Haider Ali Shah, Parliamentary Secretary for Industries on Wednesday informed the National Assembly that up to four years old and used vehicles can be imported. During the question hour session, he informed the house that the limit of old and used vehicles has been fixed up to four years in consultation with the local industry.
He said that 75-80 percent of the spare parts of vehicles are being manufactured locally. In a written reply, Minister for Industries Chaudhry Pervaiz Ellahi said that there is no such proposal under consideration to establish a new car manufacturing plant in the country in the near future.
He admitted that the prices of locally manufactured vehicles have been increased. As regards the prices of imported vehicles, it is stated that under the new definition of the age of used vehicle, which would be calculated from 1st January subsequent to year of registration, the prices of vehicles would increase due to lesser effective depreciation. Effective depreciation would decrease due to changes made in Customs General Order (CGO) by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for calculating the age of used cars.
The reasons for increase in prices have been reported as depreciation of Rupee vis-à-vis Japanese Yen and US Dollar and rise in input costs including energy, raw-material and human resource. He further said that the prices of the small vehicles being manufactured in the country have been increased by Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000. All automobile manufacturers are in the private sector, as such prices are governed by market mechanism only and government has no role in fixing prices. Government's role is to provide policy framework including tariff and non-tariff policy measures, he added.