10pc Reduction in Trucks, Pickup Imported Duties Likley in Pakistan

The government of Pakistan has proposed to reduce the imported duties on pickup, trucks and prime movers by 10 per cent each in next financial year starting from July 1, 2012.

An official familiar with the matter told Online that government has proposed to reduce the imported duty on pickup by 10 per cent as the proposed spread was sufficient for local manufacturing.
"It is proposed that a 10 per cent imported duty on trucks may be reduced in next financial year 2012-13 because significant domestic capacity is already available," said the official, adding that a 10 per cent reduction in the imported duties of prime movers also proposed in the upcoming budget.

The government also proposed to impose 10 per cent duty on import of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses in the country in upcoming budget 2012-13 to discourage use of CNG buses. While zero duty has been proposed for import of Liquefied Petroleum Products (LPG) buses to encourage use of LPG buses in the country.

"The plan of imposing duty would hamper the efforts of introducing CNG business in big cities. Punjab province is already working on a plan to introduce CNG buses in Lahore city," said the official, adding that it was also proposed to abolish protection extended to Auto Industry by providing fair competition to existing players which will help to prevent rising prices of locally made vehicles.

The government also proposed withdrawal of Regulatory Duty of 50 per cent on cars exceeding 1800cc, being an impediment to growth in this segment and revisiting the existing schemes for import of used vehicles so as to circumvent misuse there of, besides encouraging import of new vehicles over the old and used ones.