Effective June 9, the Customs Authority will enforce the regulation which fixes the ages of imported used cars to a maximum of five years for used cars, buses and trucks and ten years for heavy trucks. As the deadline nears, the demand for used cars has been increasing along with imports of used vehicles, especially American cars, from neighboring countries. Citizens have rushed to neighboring countries to buy up old used cars at cheap prices in order to sell them in the Kingdom where they can make profits reaching SR15,000 a car. A number of dealers in the Kingdom have requested the Customs Authority to reconsider the decision so as to increase the maximum age of imported small cars and trucks to eight years instead of five years on the grounds that the prices of such vehicles are reasonable and meet the requirements of limited income citizens. Others have pointed out that the decision will enable the dealers of used cars to monopolize the market which will lead to a tremendous increase in the prices of cars at the expense of consumers, pointing out that this will be the case even though the price of cars has dropped by 15 percent in exporting countries.
