Vehicle production in Japan rose for the first time in three years in 2010, up 21.3% over the previous year to 9,625,940 units.
The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) said the growth was attributable to increased domestic sales due to the government’s tax breaks and subsidies for the purchase of environmentally friendly cars and increased exports to Europe, the US and emerging markets.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
However production has still not got back to the 10m plus market of a few years ago or close to the 1990 peak of 13.4m.
Passenger car production was up 21.1% to 8.3m units, the first rise in three years, while truck output grew 22.8% to 1.2m, the first increase in seven years. Bus production increased 26% to almost 110,000 units.
Vehicle exports rose 33.8% from 2009 to 4.8m, the first rise in two years. Passenger car exports were up 33% to 4.2m, trucks rose 42.7% to 450,288 units and bus exports increased 26% to 115,812.
On a less positive note, as government incentives have run out, figures for December show that vehicle production declined 5.1% from a year earlier to 747,947 units for the third straight month of year on year decline.
