Incentive package for small electric vehicles, buses on cards

ISLAMABAD: An high-level meeting held to finalise ways to launch country’s first electric vehicle (EV) policy, green-signalled an incentive package for two- and three-wheelers and buses, which may be submitted to Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for approval, a statement said on Tuesday.

The government in a statement said the interministerial meeting, chaired by Malik Amin Aslam, Adviser to Prime Minister on Climate Change, was attended by officials from Ministry of Industry & Production, Ministry of Finance, Auto Industry Development Committee (AIDC), Pakistan Auto Parts Manufacturers Association (Papaam), and Engineering Development Board (EDB). The meeting was aimed at discussing and finalising the modalities regarding 2-3 wheelers, their import, manufacturing infrastructure, and parts with all relevant stakeholders and send them to Economic Coordinating Committee (ECC) of Cabinet for approval.

The statement said the participants, however, called for further stakeholder consultations, for four-wheeler electric vehicles. It quoted the attendees as saying that standardisation was an area, where parameters needed to be chalked out.

The meeting also decided to form a sub-committee to chalk out parameters for standardisation and finalisation of recommendations for the ECC for two- and three-wheeler electric vehicles.

However, the statement said, Ministry of Industries & Production was requested to discuss the proposed incentives structure with AIDC and Papaam etc and convey their suggestions/ input for two- and three-wheelers within a week’s time and for four-wheelers within 15 days.

Addressing the meeting, the adviser said the government was pacing up efforts to implement the country's electric vehicle (EV) policy to open up new vistas of economic, employment and environmental opportunities as well as other benefits.

“The policy and economic incentives will also be extended to the auto manufacturing sector to produce electric vehicles locally,” said the advisor. “The possible benefits of EV penetration included decrease in emissions from transport sector, reduction in fuel import bill, saving of exchequer and enabling the localisation of EV manufacturing, enabling Pakistan to become part of the global value chain of EV manufacturing.”

Aslam further said the policy would focus on encouraging manufacturing of electric vehicles locally and “we will promote made-in-Pakistan tagline in this regard”. According to the statement, he invited the AIDC and Papaam through Ministry of Industries for consultative meetings with the existing automobile manufacturers to address their concerns, if any and, to finalise further details including the phasing/time frame for various actions and to submit incentive structure proposed in the policy for consideration of ECC.

It said Pakistan Engineering Council officials suggested considering the capacity-building through arrangement of technical training prorammes for the skilled technicians working in auto manufacturing sector by including key components of EV development skills in the training programmes and incentives to be offered to the existing EV manufactures as well as new entrants.

Federal Bureau of Revenue officials proposed 10 percent custom duty on two and three-wheelers under the incentive package based on some time frame rather than number of EVs.