10:15 p.m
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Cairo – (Masrawy):
The Egyptian Customs Authority, through its official website, on Thursday, adjusted the rates of the customs dollar to record 49.56 pounds, compared to 30.94 pounds previously, following the Central Bank’s liberalization of foreign exchange rates against the pound.
The customs dollar is an economic term given to the prices of the dollar against the pound that customs authorities use to determine the value of imported goods in order to calculate customs duties based on it.
Experts and officials expected that many sectors would be affected by the decision to raise customs dollar prices, and at the forefront of those sectors are automobiles, which depend almost entirely on imports, whether finished cars or production components feeding local assembly factories.
Montaser Zaytoun, member of the General Automotive Division of the Chamber of Commerce, said that in the coming period we will witness an increase in the prices of new cars by a rate that may reach 5%, as a result of the rise in the price of the customs dollar.
Zaytoun added in statements to “Masrawy” that the expected increases are due to, in addition to the rise in the customs dollar, the rise in shipping costs due to the events taking place in the Red Sea and import difficulties.
He added that the cessation of personal imports through the free zones, which was based on the black market and is now almost non-existent, will also make it difficult for cars to be available in the market.
For his part, Alaa Al-Sabaa, member of the Automotive Division of the Western Trade Union, said that the coming period may witness an increase in the prices of imported cars, especially those coming from Asian countries.
Al-Sabaa explained that the rise in customs dollar prices by about 19 pounds compared to their previous prices before the floatation will be reflected in the prices of imported goods at rates of up to 20% for cars coming from countries that do not have free trade agreements with Egypt.
He added that cars coming from European Union countries and Turkey, with which Egypt has joint trade agreements that exempt their goods from customs, will increase their prices by about 10%.
A member of the Automotive Division suggested in a statement to “Masrawy” that the Ministry of Finance, represented by the Customs Authority, fix the dollar exchange rate for imported cars for a month at its pre-float limits, that is, about 30.94 pounds.
He stressed that despite its difficulty and the large financial cost that the Egyptian state will bear, this decision is capable of being carried out by the relevant state authorities in order to give the market and the citizen more time to arrange the papers.
In this context, Al-Sabaa expected the prices of new cars to decline if the price of the dollar in Egyptian banks reached the 40-pound barrier, pointing out that this would require some time for the market to stabilize and comply with the Central Bank’s decisions.
He pointed out that car prices in the local market over the past few days were and are still very good, as a result of the significant decline in overpriced prices by rates that reached half a million pounds.
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