Agree to import 50,000 passenger cars
According to Tejarat News, Ardeshir Motahari, the representative of the people of Garmsar and Aradan in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, referring to the decline in the quality of domestic automakers’ products in recent years, pointed to the negligence of automakers in the people’s protests and the loss of life and property. In a recent meeting with a group of manufacturers and industrial activists, the Islamic Revolution confirmed the protests of the people, saying that “the quality of domestic cars is not good and the people are right.” May God Almighty hold your conscience, the law and the people accountable.
Referring to the increase in car prices after the US withdrawal from Borjam and the closure of the car import route and the sale of foreign cars at astronomical prices, he said: “Now that car imports are prohibited, foreign cars are imported at several times the price through unofficial channels;” So that its price for the consumer is many times the real price.
The member of the social commission of the parliament considered the approval of the conditional liberalization plan for importing foreign cars as a step to get out of this situation and said: The Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the conditional liberalization plan for importing foreign cars. Prices experienced a relatively good fall. In the domestic car market, prices ranged from 2 to 7 million tomans, and in the foreign car market, prices sometimes dropped to 100 million tomans, but with the opposition of the Guardian Council to this plan, this downward trend did not continue.
Motahhari spoke of a 20 to 30 percent reduction in car prices if cars are liberalized, adding: “Certainly, the impact of liberalizing car imports on the market will not be limited to foreign cars.” If in 1997, with the implementation of the car import ban, the price of domestic cars changed along with foreign cars, the same is true in the current situation.
Referring to the approval of car imports in the parliamentary commission, he announced the import of heavy mining and road construction machinery, trailers, trucks and buses next year and said: “According to this decree, the import of 50,000 passenger cars has been agreed and a reorganization plan has been approved.” The automotive industry was also referred to the Expediency Council for further investigation.
The representative of the people of Garmsar and Aradan in the 11th parliament added: the government will have no choice but to approve this plan, while one of the ways to compensate for the government budget deficit is the duties and customs duties collected from the import of foreign cars.
Motahhari considered the implementation of the policy of controlling and supervising car imports to be effective in leading the car market towards reasonable prices, creating a competitive market, turning car manufacturers to new methods to reduce production costs, reducing accumulated losses of car manufacturers and domestic car prices.
In response to the question whether the elimination of 4,200 Tomans will affect the Iranian car market or not? He said: “Since only at the beginning of the implementation of government currency, automakers received government currency and after that this allocation of currency to automakers was eliminated, the removal of government currency from the country’s economy should not affect the car market, because automakers and parts manufacturers received 4,200 Tomans.” they do not.
The representative of the people of Garmsar and Aradan, noting that the automotive sector of the country is more related to the sectors of the economy that have high employment than the sectors that have low employment, said: Includes car parts (directly) and other parts.
In the end, regarding the approach of the government and the parliament towards the automobile industry, Motahhari said: in dealing with the worrying situation that has arisen regarding the import of cars in the automotive industry, two scenarios can be considered; The first scenario is that the industry has a comparative advantage, in which case one should not worry about car imports and their impact on employment. The second scenario is that the industry does not have a comparative advantage in the country, and in this case there is definitely this concern, because the industry that does not have a comparative advantage in a country must definitely be small and eventually disappear from the economy.
Source: ایسنا