Duty-free vehicle import facility withdrawn

The government has reversed the facility of temporary import of duty-free vehicles for overseas Pakistanis and restricted it only to foreign tourists. A series of amendments were made through a customs notification, SRO533, by amending rules for temporary import of vehicles. Over the last five years, 1000 vehicles entered Pakistan under the tourist facility, while only 900 were verified to have left the country. The Customs department is still looking for the remaining 100 vehicles, including untraceable heavy bikes. Under this facility, the government allowed tourists to bring vehicles into the country and take back to their home country. Three significant changes have been introduced in the facility. The major change was that the temporary import of vehicle facilities was withdrawn for Pakistani passport holders. Now only foreign passport holders will be allowed to bring vehicles into the country. All manual procedures have been done away with and replaced with a computerised system to help travellers and to keep a check on misuse of the facility.