Sri Lanka’s multibillionaires drive super luxury vehicle market
Sri Lanka’s super luxury and luxury vehicle market is growing at present continuing the upsurge recorded a few years ago with high spending multibillionaires throwing money to import Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porches, BMWs and Mercs.
These super luxury cars have been bought by leading local billionaires, young businessmen and sons of politicians or sons of businessmen with high political connections outright or using leasing facilities obtained from major state- owned leasing companies, an independent survey conducted by motor traders revealed.
Some of those Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porches have been airlifted to Sri Lanka similar to Dubai style, a leading motor trader who wished to remain anonymous told the Business Times.
The newly emerged high spending, young business class is wielding immense political clout and no one knows the exact nature of their business, a senior Treasury official told the Business Times.
A few of them are big time business brokers and wheeler dealers; he said adding that these youth are playing with other people's money.
The vehicle taxation formula introduced in the 2018 budget paves the way for super luxury vehicles to flow in with the removal of the ad-valorem rate, motor traders claim.
The government has failed to understand the modern day automobile world and new trends in the trade worldwide and the present unexpected situation in the motor trade has arisen due to this reason, a frontline member of the Ceylon Motor Traders Association (CMTA) told the Business Times.
Citing an example he noted that the comparison of a vehicle (apart from its options) is made taking into
considera- tion the power factor (output) and the cost of production and not the cubic capacity of an engine. There is no basis in a taxation formula based on engine capacity, he added.
At least five super cars including McLaren 570GT, Bentley Mulsanne, Ferrari 488 and two Lamborghinis, worth millions of rupees have been airlifted to Sri Lanka from Dubai airport, he disclosed adding that he received this information, on Wednesday.
In December last year, multibillionaire Dhammika Perera brought down a Bentley Mulsanne Hallmark, worth around Rs. 160 million, inclusive of import duty. This super luxury car is the single, most expensive sedan in the world.
A Lamborghini worth Rs. 110 million was imported by a businesswoman from Havelock Town in December
last year. The custom duty was nearly Rs. 60 million.
A yellow coloured Ferrari 488 Spider which is equipped with a full convertible Spider architecture was brought down by a leading businessman who is the owner of a chain of hotels in Negombo recently.
According to local media reports, those were some of the recent imports of super luxury vehicles to Sri Lanka by leading business leaders.
Such premium cars surged to 206 units in January this year a significant increase from December when volumes were a mere 53 units and 67 units 12 months ago, JB Securities said in their latest research report.
Mercedes Benz accounted for 52 units in the new segment of which 37 are C Class mainly the C160 which has a 1.6L engine thus a duty of Rs. 6.4 million and 23 pre owned units of which 20 were C class.
BMW posted a mere four units but in the pre owned segment there were 54 units registered – 3- series 24, 5-series 20 and 7-series 8 , the 7- series comes with a 2L hybrid engine thus the duty was Rs. 10 million significantly improving affordability.
Audi recorded 54 units in the preowned segment, up by 31 A1 units and 18 A3 units which have 1L engines. Around 40 per cent of premium cars have a financing element to them, JB Securities revealed.