The Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Trade says the Cab­i­net is ac­tive­ly con­sid­er­ing a pro­pos­al to ex­tend the age lim­it for im­port­ed for­eign used ve­hi­cles from three years to eight years.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Col­in Neil Go­sine said the Cab­i­net Note is not yet fi­nalised, but dis­cus­sions have been on­go­ing.

“There are still key el­e­ments that must be re­viewed, in­clud­ing in­put from stake­hold­ers like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA), par­tic­u­lar­ly on mat­ters such as elec­tric and hy­brid ve­hi­cles,” he said.

Go­sine added that once fi­nalised, the move should bring re­lief to fam­i­lies and in­di­vid­u­als who want to own a re­li­able car but are cur­rent­ly priced out of the mar­ket.

“By al­low­ing the im­port of slight­ly old­er but still de­pend­able ve­hi­cles, con­sumers could see sav­ings of $30,000 to $50,000 on each pur­chase.”

He said the pol­i­cy would ben­e­fit both cus­tomers and busi­ness own­ers by restor­ing quo­tas and cre­at­ing more flex­i­bil­i­ty in the age lim­it.

“We can un­do the dam­age of the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy that cut deal­ers’ al­lo­ca­tions by 30 per cent. That pol­i­cy se­vere­ly crip­pled small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es in the au­to­mo­tive sec­tor. The new frame­work would sup­port lo­cal busi­ness­es while giv­ing con­sumers a much wider range of af­ford­able choic­es.”

He added that the pro­pos­al must first go through all the prop­er chan­nels, in­clud­ing con­sul­ta­tion with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers such as TTA­DA. Once feed­back is in­cor­po­rat­ed and the Cab­i­net gives its fi­nal ap­proval, the pol­i­cy can move for­ward.

When con­tact­ed, TTA­DA pres­i­dent Visham Bab­wah said he and the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers met with Go­sine on Fri­day at the Min­istry of Trade in Port-of-Spain. Bab­wah not­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion has sev­er­al con­cerns they plan to raise dur­ing fu­ture dis­cus­sions to en­sure con­sumers get the best deal.