Tires for cars and motorcycles, small appliances and more than 80 products, the Government reduces import tariffs

As anticipated last week, The National Government reduced rates for 89 products including appliances, tires for cars and motorcycles, fertilizers e plastic inputs.

The measure was made official through Decree 908/2024published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette, and will take effect from January 1, 2025.

The reduction of 89 tariff positions would not immediately translate into a drop in consumer pricesas pointed out by different sectors and argued that for this to happen, costs should continue to be reduced.

In this way, it was established that, for example, tire tariffs decrease from 35% to 16%, while those of motorcycles drop from 35% to 20%. Both goods were part of the list of products that had rates higher than the Mercosur level, which had been raised by decision of previous administrations.

In the case of car tires, the decrease It will be done in three tranches of 5% every four months and a last section of 4%, while for motorcycles the reduction will be in two sections, one of 10% and one of 5%.

In this same line, The Decree reduced tariffs on 30 products at the regional level (between 9% and 30%)among which are small appliances, coffee, sun creams and gas bottles. Previously these items had tariffs of between 25% and 35%.

In addition, key inputs such as PET plastic, copper tubes and textile inputs that had aliquots of between 12.6% and 35%, decreased to values ​​between 2% and 20%. Thus, they became included in the National List of Exceptions to the Common External Tariff, which allows tariffs on up to 100 products to be below the tariff established by Mercosur.

The rate was also reduced to 38 pieces of machinery, which became included in the list of Mercosur Capital Goods that allows durable goods to have a preferential import tariff. Among them are industrial furnaces, boilers and engines without national production, which had a tariff of between 12.6% and 35%, and they will begin to have a tariff of between 2% and 12.6%.

“These tariff reductions are part of a package of measures to promote foreign trade and benefit industry and consumers, developed by the Secretariat of Industry and Commerce of the Ministry of Economy, and go hand in hand with other measures such as the reduction of tariffs on refrigerators, washing machines, tires, plastic inputs, fertilizers and herbicides, promoted in May of this year,” the decision seeks.

In the recitals of the decree signed by President Javier Milei, the Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos, and the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, it was emphasized that the measure “is timely and convenient in order to balance the levels of incentives for the production, as well as competitiveness and improving the price at which consumers access certain goods.”