After cracking down on the undervalued brand new China buses, the local bus manufacturers are now up in arms against the alarming inflow of undervalued second hand buses imported from Korea.

An industry official said that Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA), a group of bus and truck assemblers, will contest the Bureau of Customs’ decision to revalue the imported second hand Korean buses to only $8,000 per unit without consulting the local industry.

A total of 50 second hand imported buses (Hyundai and Daewoo) from Korea were held by the BoC for undervaluation at only $2,000 per unit.

The industry believes that the $8,000 per unit revaluation by the BoC is still below the appropriate $11,000 to $12,000 per unit price for a second-hand imported bus.

We are going to undertake consultations with the BOC and the Bureau of Import Services on their revaluation, the official said.

The industry was alarmed by the influx of second hand Korean buses, which have been estimated to reach over 300 units since the start of the year.

These second hand buses have found their way into the Philippines because 9 year-old and older buses can no longer be registered in Korea.

Secondly, there is no prohibition as to their importation as long as these imports are able to comply with the EURO 2 requirements for environment standards before they can be registered with the Land Transportation Office.

But the official said that the certificates of compliance on the EURO 2 standards issued by the Department of Energy are allegedly manipulated because these second hand imported buses cannot really pass the EURO 2 standards and therefore cannot be registered with the LTO.

Local truck manufacturers have been affected by the imported buses, especially Columbian Manufacturing Corp., which is a local franchisee for the assembly of Hyundai brand.

There have been a total of 21,000 buses registered with LTO and about 2,500 units are being registered annually for both brand new and second hand buses.