According to article 44, cars are not exclusive commodity

According to Khabar Khodro, Secretary of Iranian Automakers Association said, “According to definitions of article 44, cars are not exclusive commodity and they do not include pricing.”

Ahamd Nematbakhsh in an interview with Khabar Khodro’s reporter said, “According to 12, 13 and 14 constitutions of article 44, exclusivity is of two kinds: naturally and legally. Natural exclusivity means when an institution launches some products with a price that the others cannot afford it or enter to that segment. Certainly automakers are not in this situation.”

He added, “Also as constitution 14 of article 44, legal exclusivity means when as the result of law, production, marketing or some special services are in monopoly of one or some institutions and it also do not include carmakers.”

Nematbakhsh admitted, “According to those explanations, the Council on Competitiveness should discharge the production of exclusive commodities from exclusivity. In addition, Iran Khodro and Saipa, as two big automakers in country do not perform any action in order to which other companies could not join them. It means when we can say that car making in Iran is exclusive that companies try to do something in order to not allow others enter to their segments or try to decrease the costs as much as private sector can not compete with them.”

He told, “First of all Iran Khodro and Saipa did not have such an action yet and now Automakers Association has 26 members more than 50 percent of which are manufacturing utility vehicles.”

He in response to the question, which says now that 90 percent of car market in country is in the possession of these two big automakers is the cars in country still non exclusive, told, “This is not a good reason for exclusivity of cars. On the other hand, in analyzing world’s auto industry we can see most of the companies have such a condition. For example, 75 percent of Korean market is in possession of Kia and Hyundai but no institution prices their cars. Iran Khodro and Saipa have a big market share but we should also consider how others behave in such a condition.”

He said, “Now that importing cars is free and we also have a lot of automakers in country and people are free to choose, again the car pricing should not occur and automakers must be allowed to price their products.”