Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE ordered his officials at Roads & Transport Authority to postpone the ministerial decision which would ban all of 20 years old cars from streets, one month before they apply it.

Carmiddleeast reports :

With just one month to go before the proposed new law banning cars older than 20-years old from the streets of the UAE was due to come into effect, an indefinite postponement has been announced.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE, has issued instructions to postpone the implementation of ministerial decision No. 535, 2008, which would have banned all 20-year old or older cars from the streets at the start of 2009.

Lieutenant General Shaikh Said Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Interior, said the decision was made to allow people on low incomes who own older vehicles to continue to use them. Sheikh Saif said the President’s instructions came ‘in the right time so that concerned authorities undertake more studies’, and that it would give more time to come up with a unified set of regulations.

Therefore, there still may be new regulations coming into effect regarding re-registering the cars – with focus on carbon dioxide and other emissions, though details are still sketchy at the moment.

It was estimated that more than 140,000 cars would have been effected by the 20-year cut off at the start of 2009, with a further 320,000 cars affected in 2010. Currently, there has been no official announcement regarding the 2010 cut off, nor the impending ban on imports of cars older than 5-years old.