With the 2-wheeler industry going through one of the worst phases in the recent past, the country's largest bike maker, Hero Honda Motors today asked the government to streamline the corporate tax rate for the sector ahead of the budget.The company also said the government needed to consider lowering interest rates and ensure easy availability of finance in rural areas for the sector to reverse the trend."The 2-wheeler industry is one of the few industries that have witnessed negative growth during the last fiscal owed to lack of finance availability in rural areas and extremely high interest rates. We hope that the finance minister would look into these things to help the industry get over the slump in sales," Pawan Munjal, MD, Hero Honda, told PTI on the sidelines of Hero Mindmine Summit.He said the government must also re-look at the corporate tax so as to give some relief to the 2-wheeler makers.The 2-wheeler industry depends heavily on vehicle financing with a majority of sales, nearly 70%, coming through this route. Owing to high interest rates, a vast majority of 2-wheeler buyers have been delaying their decision to purchase, leading to an overall decline in sales.High interest rate regime also forced banks to withdraw financing schemes from various rural markets which add significant volumes to overall 2-wheeler sales in the country.The industry, which grew at a steady pace during a major part of previous fiscal, saw a dip of nearly 8% in sales during the April-December period of this fiscal.
