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My Profile Top News Reuters top ten news stories delivered to your inbox each day. Subscribe You are here: Home > News > International > Article Home Business & Finance News U.S. Politics International Technology Entertainment Sports Lifestyle Oddly Enough Health Science Special Coverage Video Pictures Your View The Great Debate Blogs Weather Reader Feedback Do More With Reuters RSS Widgets Mobile Podcasts Newsletters Your View Make Reuters My Homepage Partner Services CareerBuilder Affiliate Network Professional Products Support (Customer Zone) Reuters Media Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Unsafe, salvaged cars cause havoc in Kabul Thu May 7, 2009 10:40pm EDT Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] By Hamid Shalizi KABUL (Reuters) - More than seven years after the fall of the Taliban, the streets of Kabul are gridlocked with cars, many of them so rickety they failed roadworthy tests at home and were shipped off to Afghanistan instead. Importing vehicles into Afghanistan has become one of the most lucrative businesses in the country as vast injections of foreign cash help the economy recover from years of civil war followed by austerity and sanctions during the Taliban era. But unscrupulous traders are exploiting a lack of import regulations to ship in vehicles that fail safety tests in other countries, officials and dealers say. "Afghan traders mostly import Japanese Toyota cars that are second-hand and salvaged," said Amir Mohammad, a police officer in charge of Kabul's crowded city center. Some 90 percent of used cars were bought in Germany and Canada and then shipped to Afghanistan via Dubai and an overland route from Iran. Businessmen and high-ranking officials drive Toyota land cruisers and Lexus jeeps. Other cars are out-dated, with Russian taxis from the 1960s and 70s still creeping through the city's streets, clogging the capital's skies with pollution. The government, about two years ago, restricted importing vehicles more than a decade old, but then abandoned the rule in the face of protests from traders who said they had placed orders for old cars and Afghans could not afford newer models. "There is no law that stipulates what type and what models of vehicles the traders can bring in," said Finance Ministry spokesman Aziz Shams. New cars anyway have a mixed attraction, in a country where crime, guns and violence are still rampant. "Most people don't want to buy new cars because it attracts the kidnappers and robbers," said civil servant Nadir Shah. "On the other hand, most cars on the Afghan roads are very old, they might have had dozens of accidents before getting to our country," he added. OLD CARS CLOG STREETS AND SKIES The average profit on a salvaged car is around $1,000 and business is booming, with an average 20 cars per day sold in Kabul alone, dealers said. Prices range from about $4,000 for a 1996 model to $16,000 for a 2006 Toyota Corolla. There are also thousands of cars brought in during the early 1990s that had the steering column crudely, and dangerously, modified to fit Afghanistan's right-hand drive road system. The largely narrow, unpaved and pot-holed roads of the city are now flooded with 400,000 mostly second-hand cars, nearly ten times the amount they were originally designed for. Continued... View article on single page Share: Del.icio.us Digg Mixx Yahoo! Facebook LinkedIn Next Article: Egypt brushes off reports on nuclear traces Green Business Reuters Green Business Reuters introduces a new section dedicated to the emerging green technology sector, featuring five people to watch in the business of green and our global green portfolio. 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