Ali­cia Llanos

Un­less high tax­es and the four-year age lim­it on im­port­ed cars are changed, the for­eign used car in­dus­try will die.That was the mes­sage be­ing sent to Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Stephen Cadiz yes­ter­day by used car deal­ers who gath­ered in protest out­side the min­istry's of­fices, Nicholas Tow­ers, In­de­pen­dence Square South, Port-of-Spain.

T&T Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Vis­han Bab­wah called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Cadiz to re­duce tax­es and in­crease the car age lim­it to six years.Bab­wah said: "If we don't get six years the in­dus­try will def­i­nite­ly col­lapse."He said in 2008 the age lim­it of used cars was re­duced to four years and tax­es on for­eign used cars were raised.Bab­wah said the price of cars in­creased, re­sult­ing in re­duced sales, forc­ing many deal­ers to close their doors.Re­gard­ing tax­es placed on for­eign-used cars, he said tax­es were de­ter­mined by the size of the car en­gine.

He said in some cas­es tax­es placed on cer­tain cars were just $2,000 less than tax­es placed on new cars.Bab­wah said be­fore 2008 there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 deal­ers. How­ev­er, he added, to­day there are just over 100 deal­ers still in busi­ness.He said: "Since 2008 the in­dus­try has been dy­ing slow­ly."Bab­wah said the for­eign-used in­dus­try em­ployed just over 10,000 peo­ple and had pro­vid­ed for the cre­ation of many "spin-off busi­ness­es."He said the in­dus­try opened the door for car cus­tomi­sa­tion busi­ness­es, tint shops, parts deal­ers and cre­at­ed a de­mand for me­chan­ics.Bab­wah said those in­dus­tries were al­so be­ing af­fect­ed due to down­siz­ing of the for­eign-used in­dus­try.

He crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for trav­el­ling abroad look­ing for for­eign in­vestors, in­stead of fo­cus­ing on lo­cals who have built a vi­able in­dus­try that had cre­at­ed em­ploy­ment.Bab­wah added: "We are not ask­ing for any spe­cial favours. All we are ask­ing is for them (the Gov­ern­ment) to un­do some of the puni­tive mea­sures so we can con­tin­ue our busi­ness and serve the pop­u­la­tion of T&T."He said the as­so­ci­a­tion met with Cadiz on Feb­ru­ary 22 to air its con­cerns.Bab­wah said since then they had not heard from Cadiz, adding: "He is drag­ging his feet on the is­sue."Cadiz was un­avail­able for com­ment when called.Two mes­sages were left for him but they were not replied to.