The Italian car market is set to see a sharp slowdown in growth in the second quarter due because it has not renewed incentives on car sales, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) chief economist has said.

The OECD said Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP) should expand 1.2 percent in the first quarter but then growth would slow to just 0.5 percent in the second quarter.

The organisation said that the first quarter GDP figure shows strong growth ‘because it incorporates strong figures for car sales,’ Pier Carlo Padoan told Reuters.

“In the second quarter, car sales won’t be so robust and, consequently, we are expecting a slowdown in growth,” he told Reuters.