A year before it is scheduled to come to an end, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has announced that the Excise Tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) holiday on electric vehicles will be extended by another two years.
She gave this indication on Tuesday, while acknowledging that the importation of electric vehicles has been a major challenge over the past two years due to logistics challenges.
At the same time, the Prime Minister announced that her administration will be putting millions in a revolving loan facility to be made available to public service vehicle (PSV) operators to get low interest financing to help them make the transition to electric or hybrid vehicles.
“We are going to be establishing a $3 million low-interest revolving fund to be managed at FundAccess for the acquisition of, or for the conversion of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, CNG [compressed natural gas] or solar-powered passenger vehicles for the public service vehicle sector,” Mottley announced, as she delivered her 2023 Budget in Parliament.
“We want the PSVs to come along in this transition to a green economy. That is why we start with $3 million, and it will be low interest, and if we need to increase it we shall increase it,” she said.
In relation to the VAT ease on electric, hybrid, solar-powered and natural gas vehicles, Mottley said: “Last year we introduced a two-year excise tax and VAT holiday from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024 . . . I told you earlier about the difficulties with respect to global logistics. Accordingly, I hereby now extend that two-year holiday for an additional two years, to March 31, 2026.
“We have to have a serious discussion and I hope that we can do so with our neighbours because Barbados may have to look at other options including LNG and particularly with us having the privilege of having the first LNG ship being launched here off Speightstown on Thursday,” she said.
Mottley also announced that effective April 1, 2023, postal workers will be able to borrow up to $25,000 to acquire electric motor cycles.
“I know they have been calling for an increase in limit and I feel particularly happy to be able to announce it since the introduction of loans for postment for motorcycles was as a result of my initiative in 1994,” said Mottley. She gave no indication if concerns regarding licensing classification of electric bikes have been resolved.
(MM)
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