Martin Schwenk, Managing Director & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India
“We welcome the Government’s vision of achieving a 3 trillion dollar economy and becoming the 6th largest economy in the world by end of this year. However, the decision to increase the custom duty on automotive parts was not expected and it is not going to help create demand in the industry which already is facing continued strong macro-economic headwinds, resulting in subdued consumer interest. The increase in custom duty coupled with increased input costs due to fuel price hike, could lead to an increase in the price of our model range. Though the budget has given a boost to green mobility, we wished for the inclusion of Plug-In-Hybrids for duty exemption as well, as that would have further given a push to the green mobility efforts.”