Customs amendment bill passed

Parliament of Ghana has passed the Customs Amendment Bill into law to regulate the country’s automobile industry.

The law prohibits the importation of salvaged motor vehicles and specified motor vehicles over ten years of age into the country.

It also seeks to provide incentives for automotive manufacturers and assemblers in the country, as well as increase the import duty on specific motor vehicles and provide import duty exemptions for security agencies.

Automotive giants such as Volkswagen, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan Motors, Sinotruk, among others, have all expressed their interest and plans to set up assembling plants in Ghana to boost the country’s industry growth.

But the proposal to ban salvaged and imported vehicles aged over ten years has since been met with outrage from car dealers, who consider the move to be too harsh and an attempt to price them out of business to make way for the foreign car makers.

With this law in full force, government is expected to give tax exemptions of more than GH¢800million within 3 years to automobile giants which will be setting up vehicle assembly plants in the country, a report by the Joint Committee on Finance and Trade, Industry and Tourism on the Customs (Amendment) bill, 2020, in Parliament has said.

Source: thebftonline.com