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Romanian Auto Mkt Declined 58% In 1H, More Than Statistics Show -Official

The Romanian auto market declined about 58% in the first half of the year, stronger than the decline indicated by statistics which counted sales outside the country as sales on the local market, said Thursday Brent Valmar, head of the country’s Association of Carmakers and Importers (APIA).
Romanian Auto Mkt Declined 58% In 1H, More Than Statistics Show -Official
30 iul. 2009, 15:29, English

He said that if APIA’s statistics were to be “cleaned” of sales abroad, the local auto market would show a sharper decline.

"In Romania, we had a decline of little over 51% on the car market. But if we want to be honest with ourselves we should say that due to large-scale car exports practiced by some players on the market and if we consider only sales to clients in Romania, we notice a very serious thing: the decline of the Romanian auto market is of 58%," Valmar said during a press conference.

Reporting exported cars to APIA causes the association to lose track of those sales and issue erroneous statistics regarding auto markets across Europe.

Sources with APIA told MEDIAFAX that Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Suzuki and Ford are the players that re-exported the most cars.

Valmar added this practice is normal and has to do with the European free market. He also said that, Volkswagen, the brand he represents, has exported about 100 units in the first half of the year.

He said, however, that at the level of the car market, about 10,000 cars have been imported and re-exported.

"As far as the situation in Romania goes, allow me to say that we are in an extremely difficult situation, more difficult than it is in Europe and much more difficult than in the rest of the world (…) We were coming from a level of performance that many admired, but few could explain, and in a very short while we’ve correlated the market with reality and went many years back,” Vlamar said.

He explained this “emergency brake” led to a whole series of difficulties, because importers, carmakers and dealers have structures that are designed to operated bigger volumes.