Sri Lanka has further raised taxes on cars to discourage imports, according to recent media reports on the Internet.

The new tax, which adds 10 percent import duty on cars and vans, is to be approved by parliament this month although customs authorities have been collecting it since January.

Sri Lanka has no auto manufacturing industry and imports mainly from Asia and Europe with duties ranging from 250 to 350% before the new tax.

The price of a second hand four year-old Corolla is about $40,000 in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s motor trade is lobbying the government to discourage used car imports and change import duty to make brand new vehicles more affordable, according to recent media reports on the Internet.

The Ceylon Motor Traders’ Association (CMTA) says the government has still not responded to repeated proposals to restructure vehicle tax regulations and introduce a method of obtaining motor traders’ opinion on taxes.

“We have given budget proposals to the treasury on conditional taxes and curbing reconditioned imports,” Tilak Gunasekera vice chairman CMTA told media.

The association is still lobbying against importing used vehicles from Japan saying the vehicles are scraped for a reason and they should not be imported to Sri Lanka.

This is in response to concern that Sri Lankan is becoming a dumping ground for used vehicles which cause pollution and are not road worthy.

Gunasekera says the association has proposed to the government to reduce the three and half year manufacture date rule on imports to two years.

This will help Sri Lankans to buy brand new vehicles which in turn will reduce pollution, spare part costs, maintenance & other complications, he says.