Filenews 22 September 2021 - by Dora Christodoulou
A joint effort by dozens of used car importers is underway to form a joint venture which will now import second-hand cars from Ireland to Cyprus.
As "F" reveals today, the ongoing initiative has been undertaken by vehicle dealers all over Cyprus, in order to find solutions to the important problem brought to the sector by Brexit and the skyrocketing prices of vehicles from Britain, which until recently was almost the exclusive supplier to Cyprus in used vehicles.
Our information was confirmed by the president of the Pafos Car Marketing Association, Andreas Sikkis, who pointed out that dozens of businessmen from all the provinces of Cyprus have joined forces in an effort to be able to penetrate as a single entity in the Irish market with the aim of importing to Cyprus used cars that will replace cars from Britain.
"The exit of the United Kingdom from the EU", stressed Mr. Sikkis, "brought about a surge in prices for these cars, which makes them inaccessible to the Cypriot public. On the contrary, Ireland, as a Member State of the Union, continues to provide the economic conditions for the import into Cyprus of such cars and in this direction we are working: To make as far as possible the marketing of used cars from this country as the dominant one, as the British market has been so far."
The representative of the second-hand car importers acknowledged, however, that this will not be so easy, mainly because the Irish market does not have the breadth and potential of the much larger British market. He appreciated, however, that it provides the guarantees for a good start, given that the cars are, as in the case of Britain, right-handed, the weather and road conditions are, as he said, similar and therefore the condition of the cars will be just as satisfactory, while the cost of importing and disposing of the customer will be much lower than the cost to which the cars have now soared from the non-EU British market.
