KARACHI: The car imports in Pakistan have sharply fell by 85 percent during first two months of current fiscal year owing to payment restriction imposed for customs clearance.
The car imports of Completely Build Unit (CBU) fell to $9.46 million during July – August 2019 as compared with $61.88 million in the corresponding months of the last year, according date released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Monday.
Experts said that the fall in imported cars had multiple reasons. The primary reason has been explained that the ministry of commerce in earlier this year imposed restriction that the customs clearance of cars would only be made through verified payment.
The payment should be through foreign exchange and a certificate of bank that the payment was received as foreign remittances.
Further, the latest enhance federal excise duty on imported cars.
Besides, the devaluation of Pak Rupee also discouraged the customs clearance of motor vehicles.
The overall import of CBU vehicles fell by 81 percent to $18.3 million during first two months of current fiscal year as compared with $96.116 million in the corresponding months of the last fiscal year.
The import of cars in Completely Knocked-Down (CKD) condition also fell by 15.5 percent due to higher cost of assembling.
The import of CKD cars was at $123 million during July – August 2019 as compared with $145.5 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
The overall import of CKD vehicles came down by 26 percent to $183 million during first two months of current fiscal year as compared with $247.56 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
The PBS reported that overall import of transport group fell by 36 percent to $320 million during July – August 2019 as compared with $500 million in the corresponding period of the last year.
