Harley vs Mangoes: Is this for real
Yes, I know that the story is true but the quote below is taken from here, and I swear that if I had written a sarcastic piece on the subject of Harley-Davidson and Mangoes being 'bartered,' these are exactly what I would have written... Ironic?
"We have reached an agreement... now Harley Davidson motorcycles can be imported while Indian mangoes will be available in the US markets," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said.
"Indian mangoes are only a few days away from the shipment," US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said.
7 comments:
Harleys for mangoes, eh? Whatever next. This really is unf***ingbelieveable. And anyway, mangoes are much better fruits than Harleys are motorcycles, so why give this special treatment to these American porkers? Or will manufacturers also be allowed to import Gixxers and Ninjas and R1s? Please tell me Rearset, PLEASE! Will I soon be able to buy a new 1,000cc superbike without paying insane import duties? When? Where from? Does anyone know.
Booo..hoooo.... :-((
I think we'll have'em by December'07 or March'08. I'm told the new duty bracket is 60 per cent. Which means a US$13,000 sportsbike (Blade, R1, Gixxer Thousand or ZX10R) should land up costing about Rs 9 lakh.
Special treatment for Harley-Davidson? Aren't Japanese motorcycle manufacturers going to kick up a big fuss about this?
The Indian government wants to control everything - the TV channels we can watch, the PCs we can buy, the liquour we can drink and now even the bikes we can ride?!?
Is there a cruiser fan among our top bureaucrats in the government? Or is this whole thing happening because they think Harleys are just like Enfield Bullets? For heaven's sake, will someone ask these bastards to open up imports for sports bikes? They can keep their fucking Harleys, all I want is a CBR600RR.
@anon:
CBR600RR. You wish. I wish. What's the point?
Anonymous :"The Indian government wants to control everything - the TV channels we can watch, the PCs we can buy, the liquour we can drink and now even the bikes we can ride?!?"
@anonymous :
the government is not controlling us here. but its stopping the bigger companies to enter into the indian market, indirectly protecting the indian bike maker(TVS,bajaj,HH etc), meaning the government wants our companies to grow.just imagine wat`ll happen to bajaj n tvs if we remove the import duty. the next moment there`ll be no bajaj or hero honda or kinetic or tvs in our bike industry. and this has many other side effects.
now u get the reason for those high import duties my dear guy/gal ?????
What srikar is saying is correct fundamentally, but wrong in the global picture. Such protectionism only allows companies to continue writhing in their insulated mediocrity. If there were no duties, all of the Indian manufacturers would really have to up their game.
Now, Srikar suggests that this isn't possible and I think it is. I think both Bajaj and TVS have the skills needed to compete with anyone from around the globe, although they may not have the financial and engineering resources that someone like Yamaha or Honda could bring to bear.
I think that if there were no duties, many Indian companies would probably close, but the few that would survive would be absolutely world class...
@rearset:
well, i have never said that our manufacturers cant improve themselves.(am sorry if my post meant that way)
it will take time. both bajaj n tvs cant become a honda or kawa in a fortnight, this takes a lot of time and its slowly happening.
n if the govern opens up our market for the japs now....am damn sure we`ll not have bajaj or tvs after 2 or 3 months. they need time.
da best example is the car market. in da 80s there were not many car makers in our country, except for the most popular marutisuzuki. then later....when the industry matured....da government itself slowly opened up the market for foriegn brands.dats da way it`ll happen even in the bike industry.
meanwhile....we bikers have two options left.....either import ur dream bike or wait wait wait!!!
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