TEHRAN, Iran — Last week, a group of lawmakers from the Iranian parliament’s Industries and Mines Commission introduced a motion to further raise import duties on passenger cars. The underlying assumption is that Iran’s 48-year-old auto industry is at risk amid the grassroots campaign on social media to discourage purchases of domestically made “low-quality” cars.
Among other efforts to shore up the troubled Iranian auto industry is a recent letter by the head of Iran’s Customs Administration that has been widely circulated in local media. In his letter to the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade, Masoud Karbasian calls for an increase of up to 150% in car import duties “to prevent imports of luxury vehicles and achieve the revenue target from car imports for this fiscal year.”