Baggage, gift schemes: ECC may tighten imports of 3-year-old cars today

ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, scheduled to meet on Tuesday (Dec 9), is expected to make the import of three-year-old cars — brought into the country under schemes meant for overseas Pakistanis — more restrictive, sources in the Ministry of Commerce told Business Recorder.

Sources said, Ministry of Commerce placed the summary before ECC of the Cabinet for its consideration for the amendments in procedure for import of vehicles under the Personal Baggage, Transfer of Residence and Gift Schemes Policy Order (IPO), 2022 - Appendix-E, Import Policy Order (IPO), 2022.

The ECC of the Cabinet in its meeting held on October 24, 2025 while considering the summary, directed the Ministry of Commerce to hold inter-ministerial consultations and re-submit the summary for review/decision by ECC of the Cabinet.

In compliance with the directives, an inter-ministerial meeting was convened that inter alia included the officials from Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Ministry of Industries and Production/Engineering Development Board (MoIP/EDB), Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (MOPHRD).

The matter was discussed at length, with deliberations primarily focusing on two key aspect: (i) retention of number of schemes and (ii) Firming up the conditions for the retained schemes. The Ministry of Commerce and the FBR supported the retention of Transfer of Residence and Gift schemes. While, MoIP/EDB proposed discontinuation of the Gift and Personal Baggage Schemes, citing extensive misuse and foreign exchange outflows. However, MOPHRD advocated for retention of all three schemes, emphasizing their welfare value for genuine overseas Pakistanis and the need to avoid undue hardship.

While discussing the proposed conditions for the retained schemes, the participants unanimously endorsed the application of minimum safety, environmental standards, and regulatory measures, as applicable to commercial imports, to all vehicles imported under the retained schemes.

Furthermore, the participants also supported the conditions of non-transferability of the imported vehicle for one-year; enhancing the minimum stay period abroad requirement to three years with at least 850 cumulative days for all schemes and retaining the condition of export of vehicles from the same country where the sender resides for Transfer of Residence scheme only. On the condition of increasing intervening period between successive imports, the participants broadly supported increasing the same from two years to three years, however, the MoIP proposed allowing import under these schemes only once in a lifetime.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025