RM Asia Co Ltd, whose Ford Motor dealership in Cambodia has captured about 35 percent of the country’s new-vehicle market, expects sales to jump by 20 percent this year, company officials said Wednesday.
The company sold 250 vehicles last year for a total of $7.75 million, said Seng Voeung, Ford Division manager for RM Asia. Each vehicle costs on average $23,000, he said.
“We expect to increase our sales by 10 to 20 percent this year,” said Jean-Boris Roux, the company’s country manager. Since RM Asia’s Ford dealership entered the market 10 years ago, it has been competing with about four or five other car dealerships in the country, and has secured 5 percent of the new and used-car market, Seng Voeung said.
Each year, around 700 new vehicles are legally imported in Cambodia, he said. In 2006, around 25,000 new and used vehicles were legally brought in, said Pen Siman, director of the customs and excise department at the Ministry of Finance.Tax wise, cars legally imported through official channels produce substantial revenues per car for the government, since compounded taxes amount to more than 115 percent of a car’s value, Pen Siman said.
Tariffs of 35 percent import tax, 45 percent excise tax and 10 percent value added tax apply to imported new and used vehicles. “I believe that taxes on new cars will be lowered, but not on used cars, because we want to encourage new car imports,” Pen Siman said.
Pen Siman said he could not remember the total amount of car import taxes generated for the government. Minister of Public Works and Transport Sun Chanthol said the number of vehicles here is increasing 15 percent per year. Estimates are that there were more than 150,000 cars and trucks in the country in 2006, compared to 5,700 vehicles in Cambodia in 1990, he added.
