Hard Access To Loans Will Kill Romanian Auto Market – Dacia GM

"We are about to kill the Romanian auto market because of lending,” Fourmont said during the conference Mediafax Talks about Auto Industry, adding that household lending needs to be restarted.

Beside lending issues, the Dacia general manager said he is also dissatisfied with the number of units allotted to Dacia within the car park renewal program.

"There’s a risk Romania won’t meet its target of 60,000 cars. We are disadvantaged by the distribution system because we already have 3,000 orders under the program. We need to make this program more accessible, for leasing also, because it’s very hard to get bank loans,” Fourmont said.

Dacia was assigned a quota of 1,731 cars within the first stage of the car park renewal program.

Romania plans to replace 60,000 cars older than ten years in this year’s “Junk car” program, compared to a target of 40,000 in 2008. The government also increased the scrap bonus granted to owners of old cars to 3,800 lei (EUR1=RON4.2817) from the previous RON3,000.