ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News
The automotive industry is close to breaking a sector record for all-times sales this year, with an expected 735,000 passenger cars, said Ali Haydar Bozkurt, chief executive of Toyota Turkey.
A total of 729,000 passenger cars were sold in Turkey in 2005, the previous record-setting year.
The sector started 2010 with low expectations due to the economic crisis, Bozkurt told Anatolia news agency on Sunday in the southern province of Adana.
“We did not even set a target for 2009,” he said.
The sector benefited from the government’s decision to lift the Special Consumption Tax, or SCT, temporarily in 2009, he said. “For 2010, officials told us openly not to expect any tax further support.
“The lack of support and the continuing crisis raised no hopes. Everyone was expecting the wounds of the crisis to be treated after 2011. But unexpectedly the markets started doing well. One of the main causes for this was the low interest rates.”
As 70 percent of passenger car sales in Turkey are made with bank loans, interest rates are vital for the industry, the Toyoto CEO said.
The low rates made automobiles much more accessible, he said. “Ten or 15 years ago people with savings had to decide whether to buy a car or a flat. But today automobiles cost nearly as little as a plasma TV.”
Earlier, consumers tended to replace their first-hand cars after eight years, but this period has fallen to three years, Bozkurt said.
Toyota’s sales expectations were for 26,500 cars at the beginning of the year, but they revised the figure upward to 38,000 due to a rise in sales.