Automotive industry in the Philippines - statistics & facts

 Popular vehicle types

Commuters spend a minimum of one and a half to two hours on the road. With the public transportation inflow of passengers, especially during rush hour, several consumers opt to purchase their vehicles despite the traffic congestion in the Philippines. As of October 2020, light commercial vehicles such as SUVs and vans were the highest sold type of automobile cars in the country, given the large size of Filipino families and households. In that year, around 61 thousand new SUVs were registered under the Land Transportation Office (LTO), although motorcycle registrations remain the highest amongst all vehicle types.

In densely populated cities and urbanized regions like Metro Manila, the outpour of vehicles on the road is one of the leading causes of traffic congestion. With the rising population, public transportation is not enough to cater to all commuters. In 2019, the number of people living in urban areas was approximately 47 million. The urban population accounted for almost half of the total inhabitants within the Philippines.

 New tariffs for imported cars and vans

Stemming from a petition by a group of automotive workers, the Philippine trade ministry will be imposing new tariffs for imported passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) into the country. Once implemented, each imported passenger car will have a cash bond of 70 thousand Philippine pesos, equivalent to about 1.5 thousand U.S. dollars as a provisional safeguard duty. On the other hand, the cash bond for each imported LCV was set at 110 thousand Philippine pesos or around 2.3 thousand U.S. dollars. The new tariffs were intended to protect the Philippines’ car manufacturing industry, which severely suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, locally produced vehicles cannot compete with CBU imported vehicles as tariffs imposed on traded products brought by the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), where the Philippines is a member country, falls between zero to five percent only.

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