January 6, 2021

Luxury Cars, Indian, and Malaysian-Made Vehicles Excluded in DTI's Safeguard Tariff


The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has finally released more information surrounding its “safeguard measure” against imported passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. As expected, it will affect mainstream passenger cars. What is surprising is that it will give a free pass to luxury vehicles.

You can check out the full document below, but in summary:

All vehicles covered by AHTN (ASEAN Harmonized Tariff Nomenclature) 8703, 8704.21.19 and 8704.21.29 are covered. Basically, these include all “motor cars and other motor vehicles principally designed for the transport of persons including station wagons and racing cars.” For light commercial vehicles, everything is covered below a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of five tons.

A provisionary safeguard measure in the form of a bond amount of P 70,000 for passenger cars/vehicles and P 110,000 for light commercial vehicles will be imposed for 200 days from the date of issuance by the Bureau of Customs while the case is under formal investigation by the Tariff Commission.

Completely Knocked-Down (CKD), Semi Knocked-Down (SKD), and used vehicles are exempted from the investigation, as are ambulances, hearses, electric motor vehicles, and luxury cars that have a Freight on Board (FOB) price exceeding USD 25,000 (around P 1.2 million) for passenger cars/vehicles and USD 28,000 (around P 1.3 million) for light commercial vehicles.

The list of countries covered by the safeguard measure is extensive, and it covers the Philippines’s primary source of imported cars such as Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and China. That said, there are some countries excluded from the safeguard measure and this includes India, Taiwan, and Malaysia. This effectively exempts vehicles from Tata, Mahindra, the Suzuki S-Presso, Hyundai Accent, Mazda CX-5 and CX-8, and the Peugeot 3008 and 5008.




8 comments:

  1. Does this mean price of a lot of affordable cars will increase?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Entirely depends on the brand. Likely, some carmakers will swallow the price difference, but most will pass on some of the increase to buyers.

      Delete
  2. Does this mean mga ulol ang tga DTI?

    ReplyDelete
  3. And luxury cars are excluded. Ang yayaman na nga ng mga bumibili niyan sila pa ang walang tariff. Whoever came up with this? Just wanna talk.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What about cars that are made in America and other European countries?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They're included in the so-called tariff, but if their price is above USD 25,000 (FOB), they're exempted.

      Delete
    2. And american vehicles that are made in mexico such as the Ford Bronco Sport and Mustang Mach-E?

      Delete

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