The government will build a sustainable automotive policy in order to meet the challenges of the country's emerging auto industry

The government will build a sustainable automotive poli­cy in order to meet the challenges faced by the country’s emerging auto industry, a meeting of au­tomobile entrepreneurs has heard.

The government plans to combine the rules and regulations of all relevant departments into one co­herent policy, while in­creasing tax revenue, cre­ating jobs and investing in new technology, Kyaw Win, the union minister of planning and finance, told a meeting led by Vice- President U Myint Swe.

The minister didn’t pro­vide details about when the new policy would emerge.

The move comes after calls from the country’s auto industry for a clear policy have intensified in recent months, in the wake of several announce­ments by the government which business owners say will have an adverse affect on car sales.

“Automobile policies are constantly being released in Myanmar and there are no strong sustainable policies to prepare the in­dustry for long-term chal­lenges,” said Dr. Soe Tun, chairman of the Myanmar Automobile Manufactur­ers’ and Distributors’ As­sociation, who attended at the meeting.

In November last year the government an­nounced that in 2017 vehicle importers would only able to import left-hand drive vehicles newer than 2015, undoing a rul­ing by the previous gov­ernment last year to over­turn similar ban proposed in 2015.

With Japanese made right-hand drive mod­els making up almost 95 percent of vehicles in the country, the industry have said the new restric­tions will make cars too expensive for the average buyer and sales numbers will drop.

“I urged the meeting for a 20-year master plan. It’s better to combine all the different policies in one place rather than Yangon having an automobile policy which is different to all the other states and regions,” he said.

“The government’s per­ceptions on the automo­bile sector are totally dif­ferent than ours so they sometimes release poli­cies which makes it dif­ficult to do business,” he added.

The government also needs to monitor busi­nesses in the sector so that everyone follows the new policy and they must take action against those who don’t, said Dr. Soe Tun.

(Myanmar Business Today: http://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/government-pledges-new-auto-policy-after-calls-clarity-industry)

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