Tehran, Iran, Dec. 12
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
The domestic production of cars in Iran is expected to boom after the Cabinet last week agreed to radical gains in tariffs on imported cars.
According to local news outlets, the tariffs rose by 30 to 500 percent under a new regulation.
This comes at a time when Iranian producers have been tapping the post-nuclear deal opening to boost their output.
Car manufacturing in Iran during the first seven months of the current fiscal year (since March 21) had a 21 percent rise compared with last year’s corresponding period.
In the last fiscal year, which was the first post-nuclear deal year for Iran, car, bus and truck output indicated around 40 percent year-on-year growth.
It appears that the domestic producers have acted successfully in lobbying their rivals - importers - into the corner.
However, importers are not going to be much of losers in this new situation as history has shown. In 2012, when the dollar tripled against the rial overnight, importers delivered the cars that they had bought at the old dollar rate at prices that were based on the new dollar price.
The only loser in this change of tariffs seems to be environment, as the domestically made cars are no way in a position to have a claim to environment-friendliness. The fact of the matter is that the highest rise in tariffs has gone to hybrid cars, from 4 to 25 percent.