KARACHI: The import of motor cars has sharply declined by 38.34 percent during first eight months of current fiscal year due to certain government checks on preventing misuse of allowed schemes.
The import of motor cars in Completely Built Unit (CBU) condition was at $202.9 million during July – February 2018/2019 as compared with $329.06 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Industry experts attributed the decline mainly to restriction imposed on non-filers in registering imported cars with provincial motor vehicle authorities.
The experts further said that the condition of arranging foreign exchange for payment of customs duty had also discouraged the imports of cars.
The import of cars fell even more sharply when compared the imports of $9.47 million in February 2019 as compared with $37 million in the same month of the last year.
The experts said that the import of cars had been allowed under three different schemes such as gift scheme, transfer of resident scheme and baggage scheme for Pakistanis living abroad.
However, these schemes were grossly misused which resulted huge loss of foreign exchange.
Related Stories
Car imports fall sharply by 43pc on regulatory duty, currency devaluation
