Western jalopies to hit Polish motorways

Auto industry representatives said Poland might become Europe's scrap yard after the government last week lifted the ban on the import of cars 10 years and older.

"If we don't succeed in persuading the government into limiting the imports of used cars, Poland will be flooded by car scrap, and the recycling costs will be enormous," said Stefan Bieliński, president of the Polish Motoring Chamber (PIM), which represents Poland's auto industry.

The ban on the import of old cars expired Dec. 31, in line with Poland's 1991 European Union (EU) Association Agreement. The removal of the barrier is counter to the previous and current government's efforts to protect the new-car industry by banning imports of some used and junked autos.

Outside of an outright ban, the Economy Ministry is looking for other avenues to support automakers by calling on other ministries to take measures that would hamper imports of old cars.

"The Economy Ministry fears a flood of old cars and we have repeatedly urged the Infrastructure Ministry to raise technical standards required from cars and the Finance Ministry to tie the excise tax rate to a car's age," said Rafał Zwoliński, an auto industry specialist at the Economy Ministry.

According to the ministry, placing higher excise tax rates on older cars would reduce the influx of very old vehicles, particularly those older than eight years.

"It would shift the demand over to younger classes," said Tomasz Bryzek, deputy director of the ministry's industrial policy department.

Raising technical standards would also reduce the number of used cars on the road, ministry officials hope. Tests conducted by the PIM in December proved that a great number of used cars in Poland don't meet the required technical standards.

"More than 30% of these cars shouldn't be on Polish roads at all," said Andrzej Grzegorczyk, the director of the Road Traffic Safety Board at the Infrastructure Ministry, a patron of the survey.

According to auto industry sources, the new provisions will further strengthen the mounting dominance of imports, and imports of old cars in particular, on the Polish market. To squelch some imports, the last government banned the then massive import of junked cars in March 2001, hoping to stimulate demand for locally made low-entry vehicles. But despite the governments' ongoing attempts, the imports of old vehicles have continued to grow over the past year, while the sales of new cars fell by as much as 31%.

"Despite the restrictions introduced in 2001 the import figure of used cars is rising," said Wojciech Drzewiecki, president of the market-watching firm Samar.

According to Samar's monthly report, 213,000 cars four years and older were imported to Poland in the January-November period of 2000, while the number rose to more than 230,000 or more than 80% of all car imports, in the same period of 2001.

While leading industry figures are ringing alarm bells, small-business sources expect no major flood of Western European scrap.

According to Krzysztof Sładkowski, the owner of Auto-Złom group of scrap yards, few people will be eager to import old cars because of high upkeep costs and technical requirements.

"You can import cheap old cars but you'll find it difficult to get them registered in Poland, as they will be unlikely to meet technical standards," he said.

As consumers have less and less cash at their disposal due to the current economic crisis, many of them will not be able to afford to pay maintenance and insurance costs, he said.

"An owner of a car that's worth zł. 1,800 has to pay zł. 300 annually just for insurance," Sładkowski said.

Jarosław Kocoń, president of Ital-Mot dealership, agreed that lifting the ban will lower the sales of new cars but he said it will be no significant threat to new car dealers.

"Due to our international situation, (Poland) cannot ban car imports just for the ban's sake," he said. "We had 10 years (since the agreement was signed) to prepare ourselves.

"We should have used this time to bring our technical requirements to EU levels."

Poland's system of testing centers, which check the technical condition of cars and OK them for use on roads, should be improved and the control over these centers must be tightened in the first place, he noted.

Testing centers issue approvals for cars too easily and bribery is widespread, Kocoń said. "A driver can ‘buy' an approval for a mere zł. 120," he said. "Our technical standards are far behind the EU. You can see cars on streets that drive sideways or with their front at the back, but they somehow got cleared."

Robert Wylot