Rapheal John-Lall

In a move ex­pect­ed to shake up the for­eign used car in­dus­try, Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon yes­ter­day an­nounced a new pol­i­cy which bars the im­por­ta­tion of gaso­line-pow­ered ve­hi­cles more than four years old. Pre­vi­ous­ly, for­eign used car deal­ers were al­lowed to im­port ve­hi­cles that were up to six years old.

The pol­i­cy, which takes im­me­di­ate ef­fect, al­so re­stricts prospec­tive buy­ers im­port­ing cars for per­son­al use to do­ing so every four years in­stead of every three years.

"The de­ci­sion was al­so tak­en that the cur­rent age lim­it of three years for diesel-pow­ered cars and four years for CNG-pow­ered cars which are al­lowed for im­por­ta­tion be main­tained," the min­is­ter said dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the min­istry's of­fices at Nicholas Tow­ers, Port-of-Spain.

Gopee-Scoon said the ap­pli­ca­tion process for any new per­son or busi­ness seek­ing to reg­is­ter as a For­eign Used Car Deal­er has been tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed as the Trade Min­istry is cur­rent­ly un­der­tak­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view and au­dit of the ex­ist­ing pol­i­cy. The re­view, which will in­clude dis­cus­sions with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, will be con­clud­ed by March 31.

The min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that the for­eign used car in­dus­try has made a tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try's econ­o­my via in­creas­es in em­ploy­ment and in­come gen­er­a­tion, as well as mak­ing ve­hi­cle own­er­ship af­ford­able for many low­er and mid­dle in­come fam­i­lies.

She said: "The im­por­ta­tion of for­eign used cars has con­tributed con­sid­er­ably to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of a num­ber of re­lat­ed down­stream ac­tiv­i­ties in the in­dus­try, in­clud­ing ser­vic­ing and re­pair of cars, trad­ing of spare parts and tyres, tint and graph­ics and the sup­ply of an­cil­lary ac­ces­sories for cars such as alarms, au­dio sys­tems, cus­tomis­ing and au­to body works."

How­ev­er, she added, there were al­so chal­lenges, in­clud­ing the fail­ure by some deal­ers to com­ply with the terms and con­di­tions for reg­is­tra­tion of their deal­er­ships

Gopee-Scoon said there has been a pro­lif­er­a­tion of peo­ple op­er­at­ing as un­reg­is­tered deal­ers who are evad­ing tax­es re­sult­ing in lost rev­enue for the Gov­ern­ment. She added that the un­reg­is­tered deal­ers were op­er­at­ing un­scrupu­lous­ly at the ex­pense of con­sumers.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by of­fi­cials of the T&T Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA's) ear­li­er this week, the min­is­ter said she did not be­lieve the in­dus­try would be ham­pered.

"I know there are ve­hi­cles on the sea at this time which are com­ing on 2015 li­cences. We have an au­dit be­ing done at this time and we are aware that there are ve­hi­cles at the places of busi­ness­es. I do not know about this short­age that TTA­DA is speak­ing about," she said.

Gopee-Scoon al­so de­nied that large num­bers of em­ploy­ees in the in­dus­try were in dan­ger of los­ing their jobs.

"We have not cut down on the ceil­ing of cars be­ing brought in­to T&T at this time. Mar­ket con­di­tions will dic­tate the in­dus­try," she said.

How­ev­er, TTA­DA pres­i­dent Visham Bab­wah, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the re­vised pol­i­cy, de­scribed it as dra­con­ian and said it would re­sult in the death of the in­dus­try.

"His­tor­i­cal­ly the PNM Gov­ern­ment in past and present in­car­na­tions has al­ways been against the for­eign used car in­dus­try and has al­ways backed new car deal­ers," he said.

"When they low­er the age of used ve­hi­cles to four years this will make used ve­hi­cles un­af­ford­able. The small man will not be able to af­ford a used car which can sell as low as $60,000.

"For this Gov­ern­ment to go against the pol­i­cy with­out con­sul­ta­tion is just the tip of the ice­berg of what they plan to do with oth­er poli­cies. Our mem­bers will hold con­sul­ta­tions and we will de­cide if we have to go back to court to get this de­ci­sion over­turned."

Bab­wah said spin-off busi­ness­es in the in­dus­try would suf­fer and he won­dered about the plight of deal­ers with ve­hi­cles on the port wait­ing to be cleared.

Not­ing that the new car in­dus­try had re­cent­ly been iden­ti­fied by for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran as one of the high­est users of for­eign ex­change in T&T, he asked: "Why are they not squeez­ing new car deal­ers? The Gov­ern­ment is just us­ing con­ve­nient ex­cus­es to close down the in­dus­try be­cause of the PNM pol­i­cy to squeeze the small man. The process has al­ready start­ed with food items and prop­er­ty tax to cre­ate a so­ci­ety of have and have-nots."

–With ad­di­tion­al re­port­ing by Shas­tri Boodan

Re­vised for­eign used pol­i­cy

Cab­i­net on Thurs­day agreed to the fol­low­ing re­vi­sions to the Pol­i­cy on the For­eign Used Car In­dus­try in T&T. The re­vised pol­i­cy, an­noounced yes­ter­day by Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, is as fol­lows:

�2 Age lim­it of gaso­line-pow­ered for­eign used cars al­lowed for im­por­ta­tion re­vised to four years from the ex­ist­ing six years with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

�2 Cur­rent age lim­it of three years for diesel-pow­ered cars and four years for CNG-pow­ered cars will be main­tained;

�2 In­di­vid­u­als will be al­lowed to im­port for­eign used right-hand dri­ve cars for per­son­al use once every four years in­stead of once every three years. The age lim­it of such cars im­port­ed for per­son­al use will now al­so be four years.

�2 The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try will tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend the ap­pli­ca­tion process for any new per­son or busi­ness seek­ing to reg­is­ter as a For­eign Used Car Deal­er at the Trade Li­cence Unit (TLU).

The min­istry is do­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view and au­dit of the ex­ist­ing pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dures. The re­view will in­clude dis­cus­sions with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers and will be con­clud­ed by March 31. A sub­se­quent sub­mis­sion will be made to the Cab­i­net on a re­vised pol­i­cy for the pe­ri­od 2016-2020.

Let­ters in­form­ing all ac­tive reg­is­tered deal­ers of their quo­ta al­lo­ca­tions will be avail­able for col­lec­tion at the min­istry's Trade Li­cence Unit, 42 Tenth Av­enue, Barataria, on Mon­day.?