ALMATY, OCT. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhs bought just under 31,000 cars in the first nine months of the year, a drop of 59% compared to the same period last year.
The car market is a key indicator of Kazakhstan’s economic health and its collapse since an oil price crash in mid-2014 has mirrored the Kazakh economy. In Q1 2014, by comparison, Kazakhs bought 35,000 new cars, easily outstripping total sales for the first nine months of this year.
Analysts have said that consumers are not buying cars because of a 50% cut in the value of the tenge and higher inflation which have made them vastly more expensive.
Putting a positive spin on the news, Oleg Alfyorov, president of Kazavtoprom, the car industry union, said that he thought the market had bottomed-out and that sales would start to rise again soon.
“Kazakhstan’s car market has been in a state of recession since the second half of 2014. But this year, sales have reached a market plateau, from which retailers can start moving upwards,” he said.
Mr Alfyorov also pointed out the increased share of locally produced cars in total sales, which grew to 24%, almost double the share in 2014.
“Quarterly Kazakhs bought about 10,000 new cars. This figure has been stable since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, an increasing number of buyers preferred locally- assembled cars,” he said.
Still, this is a long way from where the industry was a few years ago when foreign car makers were eager to get a foothold in Kazakhstan’s growing manufacturing sector to launch into what they thought would be a lucrative Central Asian market.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)