Siam against used car trading proposal

The proposal, which was revised by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), states that there should be free trade of remanufactured/refurbished goods (used vehicles) between countries. At present, Indian laws do not permit any import of used vehicles.

"Trade in used vehicles, under any name, is essentially trans-boundary movement of country's waste and governments should not encourage trade of such vehicles. As such, countries should be free to decide how they want to treat the used products and not to be forced through the WTO mandate, such products should not be treated as new under any circumstances. SIAM opposes this proposal and any negotiations on remanufactured goods trade in WTO," the firm said.

The clause, apparently, is also targeted to explore India's interest in exporting used vehicles to other developing markets around the world.

However, Siam feels that allowing free trade in such products will lead to refurbished product flow from developed countries to poor developing countries (including India) and not the other way.

Some of the Asia-Pacific countries including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Sri Lanka have already opened upto to remanufactured automobiles.