A cracking December has helped lift Portugal’s moribund car sales sector from its death bed.
An overall growth for last year of 11% is a surprising and very welcome result for those dealerships still in business.
The recovery was visible from June last year after two appalling years in the automotive sector which saw sales plummet to unheard of lows.
The number of passenger cars sold in the Portuguese market managed to revive in 2013 and grew an impressive doubledigit 11%, according to data published on Thursday from ACAP – Portugal’s Automobile Association.
Last year the number of new cars sold broke the magic threshold of 100,000 units. This performance was helped by strong growth in the last seven months of 2013 and can not help but compare well with 2012 when the market hit rock bottom with registered sales the lowest for 27 years.
In 2013, 105,898 new passenger cars were sold, compared to 95,309 the previous year. 2011 in comparison saw 153,000 cars sold. Last December's percentage growth figure was 35.4% as the industry moved 8,612 units.
Now, ACAP are seldom ebullient and today is no exception as its spokesman commented, "the market is below the levels of 2011 and previous years, and the volume of sales in 2012 (the year of comparison) was abnormally low."
The crash and burn in the sector coincided neatly with the economic crisis in Portugal, and was not helped at all by the raising of VAT to 23% and the ending of the old wreck scrapping scheme.
A resolution in Parliament in July 2013 recommended the government should introduce a new incentive plan to scrap old cars in order to boost sales of new cars, but the 2014 State Budget totally ignored the pleas from experts ACAP and the National Association for Trade and Auto Repair (ANECRA).
To the surprise of the two associations the government has introduced measures to dampen demand for vehicles, including higher car tax rates for diesel powered cars.
