Slow Pace of Car Imports Criticized

Despite Iranian officials’ promises of helping realize the import of 200,000 cars per annum, so far only around 5,000 cars have trickled in, most of which are of Chinese origin, an expert said in an interview with the automotive website Donyaye Khodro.
“The government expects to control the car market [especially car prices] by only talking, but we have seen on several occasions that talks not backed by efforts give rise to opposite results. A similar move was made by the previous government that talked about imports and left it at that, which resulted in a dramatic increase in prices by several hundred percent,” said Mehdi Dadfar, secretary of Car Importers Association.
“If the authorities were to act responsibly toward all car buyers, they should show it in practice. By simply saying that the ban on car imports has been lifted and people could make advance payments will not affect the market the way actual imports would,” he added.
Dadfar said some officials of the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade insist on saying that car imports are being carried out, but if that was the case, at least one of the authorized companies in the field would have talked about this matter.