The Vehicle Importers’ Association of Lanka (VIAL) deplored the attempt by the Customes Nomenclature (NC) Committee of the Department of Customs to degrade certain categories of hybrid vehicles as non hybrid vehicles.
The NC Committee is breaching all accepted norms and classification in its attempt to classify the MH555 Wagon R as a non hybrid vehicle Sampath Merenchige, VIAL President told media on Wednesday.
He said such arbitrary decisions by the NC Committee will create a bad impression about the government among the general public and will adversely affect revenue targets of the government. Merenchige however said that Director General of Customs P. S. M. Charles upon submissions by VIAL took a brave decision in favour of vehicle importers by grating a temporary approval to clear the Wagon R temporarily under the HS8703.40.28 hybrid technology category. He said with this arbitrarily move by NC Committee which consist of members sans technical know-how it will become difficult to import any vehicle into the country, even though they are internationally accepted hybrid vehicles. VIAL Secretary Keerthi Gunawardane said that such arbitrarily declassification attempts of hybrid vehicles will only lead in the government falling short of its Rs 48 billion tax revenue target expected from vehicle imports and drastically bring down the numbers of hybrid vehicles coming into the country. MFJ
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