Sales in the automotive market continue on their downward journey that began at the end of the last year. The sales figures for the first eight months of this year registered a decline of 25.6% compared to the same period in 2015.
The market saw the sale of 137,600 units from January to August 2016, compared to 185,900 units in the same period in 2015.
A report by the Automotive Marketing Information Council (AMIC) showed that passenger car sales retreated in the first eight months of this year by 25.6%, registering 98,400 sold units, compared to 129,900 sold units as of the end of August 2015.
Sales of buses declined by 31.8%, registering 15,200 sold units compared to 22,300 the previous year, while the sales of trucks declined by 25.7%, registering 24,900 sold units this year compared to 33,600 in 2015.
Sales of the locally assembled cars also retreated by 17.3%, reaching 70,000 units in the first eight months of 2016 compared to 84,600 units in the same period last year. In addition, imported car sales declined by 33.2%, reaching only 67,500 units compared to 101,200 sold units in the comparison period.
Automotive expert, Raafat Masrouga, expected the rate of sales decline to increase due to parliament’s implementation the Value-Added Tax law (VAT), which will increase the prices of imported and locally assembled cars with an engine capacity of up to 2,000cc by 2-3% and the prices of the imported units with engine capacity of over 2,000cc by 4-5%.
The AMIC report also addressed the sales in August which registered 17,600 sold cars, a 30% drop compared to August 2015 when 25,000 cars were sold. Passenger car sales retreated by 26%, bus sales by 36.5%, and the truck sales by 40.2% decrease when compared to August 2015.
