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Nigerians spent N509.8bn on Tokunbo cars in 9 months

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Nigerians spent N509.8bn on Tokunbo cars in 9 months

Nigerians’ appetite for imported used vehicles (popularly called Tokunbo) has not diminished as the nation spent a whopping N509.8 billion importing them between January and September this year.

This is the case despite the introduction of a new car import policy over five years ago, which increased tariff on imported vehicles from 22 per cent to 70 per cent. As a measure to encourage local manufacturing of vehicles at that time, the Federal Government chose not to impose tariff on imported auto components (completely knocked-down) for assembly plants.

However, the FG has only enforced the first phase of 35 per cent on used vehicles while it has fully implemented the import tariff on brand new ones.

The over half a trillion Naira figure used in importing used vehicles was gleaned from the foreign trade in goods statistics published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently. The vehicles came mainly from the United States, Canada, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

The trade statistics revealed that N148.28 billion was spent importing used vehicles into the country in the first quarter of 2019. The US was Nigeria’s main importation hub, accounting for over 61% of the total market share with about N90.8 billion spent on used cars from the country alone. The balance of N58 billion was spent on vehicles from other countries.

Of the N148 billion, N117.46 billion was spent on vehicles with 2,500cc cylinder capacity while the remaining amount went to importing vehicles with 1,500cc cylinder capacity.

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The trend was in no way different in Q2 2019 although the value of importation rose to N177.34 billion.

The US dominated with N114.9 billion or 64.8% of the total import value spent on importing Tokunbo vehicles from the country. Italy followed with N6.3 billion, Belgium had N4.1 billion spent on importing its used vehicles while other countries shared the balance of N52.04 billion between them.

N146.95 billion was spent on vehicles with 2,500cc cylinder capacity in Q2 2019 while the remaining N30.39 billion went to vehicles with 1,500cc cylinder capacity.

The value of importation of used cars for Q3 2019 stood at N184.18 billion. The US again took the biggest market share, accounting for N120.6 billion or 65.5% of the money spent on used vehicles. Italy took N6.3 billion, Belgium N4.3 billion, Germany N3.9 billion and Canada N3.9 billion.

Other countries accounted for the balance of N35.18 billion.

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