Romania To Scrap 38,500 Cars In Last Stage Of “Junk Car” Program

In the first two stages, Romanians bought only half of the available cars at a low price, with a state subsidy of 3,800 lei (EUR1=RON4.2231) in exchange for an older car.

The third stage of the program starting on September 1 brings a series of new measures.

According to several normative acts which have already been enforced, light commercial vehicles of up to 3.5 tons were included in the program. Another amendment is the elimination of the condition allowing people to buy a single car within the car park renewal program.

After talks aiming at finding solutions that would not be regarded as state aid, the Ministry of Environment passed another normative act by which 10,000 of the total 60,000 cars whose purchase is partially funded by the state to be destined to companies.

“As environment minister, I am interested in taking old cars off the streets. I have no problem in giving that money, RON3.800, to companies,” environment minister Nicolae Nemirschi said before companies were included among eligible buyers.

As of September 1, clients can resort to leasing to cover the remainder of the total price of the car.

Nemirschi said he plans to introduce a new voucher system for the program, to ease the procedure for accessing state funds, but the plan wasn’t enforced until September 1, the start of the third stage of the program.

The total number of cars included in the 2009 edition of the “Junk Car” program increased to 60,000 from 40,000 in 2008. The scrap bonus was hiked to RON3,800 per unit, from RON3,000 in 2008.

The Government assigned RON228 million in 2009 for the car park renewal program. A new measure for this year’s edition is that ten-year old cars can be scrapped, so far only cars that were more than 12 years old could benefit from the scrap bonus.

The second stage of the program, between June 1 and august 31, benefited from RON106,156,800 from the Administration of the Environment Fund for 27,936 available cars.

The initial number of available cars was 20,000, but 7,936 cars that weren’t sold in the first stage were added.

The most recent statistics of the institution in charge of funding the program show that the program sold 9,694 cars, but the number is not final.

Under these circumstances, the number of cars available in the third stage of the “Junk Car” program in 2009 rises to nearly 38,500, of which 10,000 are destined to commercial companies.