The volume of car imports to Israel in December approached 40,000 cars

The volume of car imports to Israel in December approached 40,000 cars and may also have passed the 45,000 car threshold - according to initial estimates by car importers. For comparison - in December 2019, 5,581 cars will be imported to Israel. In December 2018, 5,100 cars were delivered in Israel.
In contrast to normal years, on January 1 this year, a new green taxation plan came into force, which will increase the purchase tax on most types of cars imported to Israel. The solution for car importers, as happens every few years, is to import a large quantity of cars to Israel in December and release the cars from customs by December 31 - of course, while enriching the State of Israel with hundreds of millions of shekels within a few days.
Data from the shipping companies responsible for transporting the cars to Israel show that December was indeed particularly busy. Thus, the Italian Grimaldi, represented in Israel by Alaluf Shipping, unloaded 12 cargo ships in Israel last month, bringing cars from Europe and the United States to Israel. "Calcalist" learned that one of the ships that arrived from Spain was specially ordered by one of the importers, as it contains cars of only one brand.
Along with the cars arriving from the west, in December alone, four Japanese NYK ships arrived in Israel from the east, compared to two NYK ships arriving in a normal month. The NYK ships unloaded in Eilat came from Korea and Japan.
In addition, initial estimates in the Israeli automotive industry predict that over 40,000 new cars will be delivered this January (about 41,500 new cars were delivered in January last year), with a significant portion of them hybrid cars and plug-in hybrid cars - released from customs in December but delivered to customers in January.