2,000 cars in two weeks

During the last two weeks, several cars bearing “PCA” licence plates have been seen on roads throughout the country, seeming to dispel reports that car sales have declined. When Newsday contacted the Licensing Authority’s Port-of-Spain offices, employees said there was nobody in authority who was available to provide that information.

However, the foreign-used car industry’s president, Inshan Ishmael, said his members have told him that as many as 2,000 cars could have been registered by the authority to date. While he did not know how many of these vehicles were new or foreign-used, Ishmael said it could be a 50:50 situation between foreign-used dealers and their rivals in the new car business.

Recalling that Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert spoke about Government’s plan to reduce the age of imported foreign-used cars from four to two years, Ishmael claimed this has prompted “panic buying” by persons interested in purchasing a car and fearful that a provision could be contained in the upcoming budget to implement what Imbert spoke about.

He said the majority of the foreign-used car dealers source their cars from countries such as Singapore and Japan and it was unprofitable for them to import cars from those countries which were less than three or four years old.

Asked if the high number of cars being registered at the Licensing Authority meant good revenues for foreign-used car dealers, Ishmael lamented that this was not the case.

He claimed that while a new car dealer could earn $100,000 for the sale of one luxury car, a foreign-used car dealer would have to sell about 20 cars to come close to that figure.

Noting that most people find it difficult to purchase a new car and rely heavily on the foreign-used car business, Ishmael appealled again to Government not to reduce the age on imported used cars.

To date, Government has not taken a decision on the matter.

Calls to new car dealerships yesterday to obtain an update about the status of vehicle sales were unsuccessful.