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Got a junker no one wants
to buy? Well, the federal government soon might take that unsalable car off your hands. A new law proposed recently by legislators would give Mexican citizens a 25,000-peso credit toward the cost of a new car in exchange for their “junk” vehicles. The old cars will be destroyed or recycled as the government tries to get contaminating vehicles off the roads and stimulate new auto sales. Money to finance the plan will come from the proposed program to legalize hundreds of thousands of used foreign-plated cars being driven in Mexico, say proponents of the bill. More than 500,000 U.S.-plated vehicles are brought into Mexico each year and about 30 percent are not returned after the six-month deadline. It is reckoned that around two million illegal US.-plated vehicles are on Mexico’s roads. The new bill permitting the regularization of most of these vehicles (Ley para la Renovation y Protection del Parque Vehicular Mexicano) - - as well as the junker credit plan -- could be one of the first passed during the new session of the Chamber of Deputies scheduled to begin the third week of March. Eight legalization programs were introduced in Mexico between 1978 and 1994. Owners of U.S.-plated vehicles were able “Mexicanize” their vehicles for as little as 1,000 pesos. This time the cost of legalizing cars may be as high as 4,500 pesos. As in the past, luxury vehicles and sports cars will not be eligible and foreign auto owners will not be permitted to participate. In the past Mexican automobile distributors have consistently criticized the government for giving in to the owners of these illegal vehicles, many of whom are farm workers and traditionally supportive of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The Mexican automobile industry says the laissez faire attitude toward the foreign-plated cars damages new car sales. Mexicans who work in the United States and bring their cars back to Mexico say high taxes here make purchasing a new car virtually impossible. Since 1994 the federal government has said repeatedly there will be no more legalization programs for illegal vehicles. This firm line has provoked protests in major cities orchestrated by groups claiming to represent the interests of thousands of migrant farm laborers. The price of U.S.-plated cars being sold on the black market in Mexico is increasing as passage of the legalization bill nears. A U.S.-plated vehicle that a few months ago would have fetched 1,500 dollars can now be sold for 30,000 pesos, according to a report in a Guadalajara Spanish-language daily this week. However, the cost is still less than for the same Mexican-plated model sold here, the paper says. |
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