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The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) today (December 19) announced the list of private car and commercial vehicle models currently available in Hong Kong that meet the qualifying standards for environment-friendly vehicles which will take effect on April 1, 2014. These vehicle models will be eligible for a concession in the First Registration Tax (FRT) after the new standards come into force.
The EPD recently completed a review of the qualifying standards for environment-friendly vehicles to be eligible for the FRT concession. "Over the years, advances in vehicle technology have enabled petrol vehicles to attain a higher environmental performance. We need to continue tightening the qualifying standards to restrict the tax incentive to those vehicles with an outstanding environmental performance," a spokesman for the EPD said.
The new qualifying standards for petrol private cars in respect of emissions will remain the same, but will be more stringent for fuel efficiency. When the new standards come into place in April next year, only 15 out of 47 car models that are currently qualified as environment-friendly vehicles will retain their eligibility for tax incentives.
For commercial vehicles, the current qualifying standards were set between the Euro V and VI levels after the Euro V emission standards became statutory in June 2012. Specifically, environment-friendly light duty commercial vehicles (i.e. those weighing not more than 3.5 tonnes) will be required to emit at least 50 per cent less than the prevailing statutory emission limits. As for environment-friendly heavy duty vehicles, their emission performance should be better than the average emission levels.
"At present, the supply of Euro VI commercial vehicles is still very limited. The EPD has thus maintained the current qualifying standards instead of enhancing them to Euro VI. Consequently, 280 vehicle models that are currently recognised as environment-friendly commercial vehicle models can retain their eligibility for the tax incentive," the spokesman added.
Since April 1, 2007, the Government has been offering a FRT concession for petrol private cars that have an outstanding performance in respect of emissions and fuel efficiency (i.e. environment-friendly cars). Since April 1, 2008, the Government has launched a similar tax incentive scheme to incentivise the choice of environment-friendly commercial vehicles.
The EPD reviews the qualifying standards of environment-friendly vehicle models annually in the light of technological advancement such that the tax incentive is available only to vehicles with an outstanding environmental performance. Changes in the new qualifying standards will become effective on April 1 of the following year. The EPD will regularly update the list of environment-friendly private car and commercial vehicle models when new models are put on the local market.
At present, environment-friendly petrol private cars can have their FRT reduced by 45 per cent, subject to a cap of HK$75,000 per car. The rates of reduction of the FRT for different environment-friendly commercial vehicle classes range from 30 per cent to 100 per cent subject to vehicle-class-specific caps per vehicle.
The updated list of environment-friendly private car models and commercial vehicle models as well as the tightened qualifying standards are available at
www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/air/prob_solutions/environment_friendly_private_cars.html and www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/air/prob_solutions/environment_friendly_commercial_vehicles.html respectively.
Ends/Thursday, December 19, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:00
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