Romanians' appetite for imported vehicles on the rise

The sales of domestic vehicles went down in the first half of the year compared with the same time last year, while the number of imported vehicles went up, the data supplied by the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers (APIA) show.
The number of domestic vehicles sold in the first half of 2006 stood at 59,265, a decrease of 8.6% from the first six months of 2005. At the same time, Romanians bought 31.8% more imported vehicles, so that sales totalled 58,191. The sales of vehicles, which include cars, commercial vehicles and buses, however, rose in the first half of the year by 5.1% compared with last year. The most significant growth was that of the car segment, with sales of cars reaching 108,973 units in the first six months, 7.8% more than in the corresponding period of 2005. On the other hand, the number of commercial vehicles sold fell 7.9% and the number of buses dropped by 27%. However, despite the volume of imports remaining lower than that of vehicles produced domestically, the imports from January through June this year increased faster than production, if compared with the same months of last year. A number of 70,311 vehicles were imported in the first six months of 2006, 30.8% more than in the first half of 2005, while production in the same interval went up by a mere 12.5%.