Control of Goods (Import and Export) (Commerce) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No. 10)

The Minister of Industry and Commerce has replaced section 3(1) of the Control of Goods (Import and Export) (Commerce) Notice, 2021 (S.I. 89 of 2021) with a flat age bar on used vehicle imports.

The new provision is short and severe. Second-hand vehicles aged ten years and above from the date of manufacture shall not be imported. Any second-hand vehicle prohibited under the subsection must be re-exported by its owner, at the owner's own expense.

That re-export obligation is the sting. A vehicle that arrives at a border post over the age limit is not simply refused entry with the buyer walking away — the cost of shipping it back falls on the owner. For the used-vehicle trade, which imports heavily from Japan and Singapore, this cuts out a large part of the stock that had been coming in.

The instrument gives no transitional relief for vehicles already shipped or waiting at a border on the date of gazetting. That gap was addressed later in the year by the Control of Goods (Import and Export) (Commerce) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No. 13), S.I. 172 of 2024, which exempted vehicles imported or awaiting clearance before its own publication and backdated that exemption to 29 March 2024 — the very date of this instrument. S.I. 172 also carved out antique, classic and vintage vehicles 25 years and older, subject to an Import Permit.

Anyone reading this instrument on its own will get the wrong answer for older classic vehicles and for consignments in transit in 2024; both need to be read with S.I. 172 of 2024.