Home market new car sales were the sole bright spot in July for Mexico’s car industry, which continues to slump amid economic weakness in the US, Dow Jones reported.

Production in the world’s 11th biggest car making country dropped 17% in July, compared with July 2002, to 114,316 units, Mexican automobile association AMIA said in a press release cited by the news agency.

Mexico exports over 70% of the cars it makes, mainly to the US, where demand has been weak for many of the models made in the country – exports fell 10.3% during July to 92,779 units, Dow Jones said, though home market sales rose 4.8% to 83,343 vehicles, the third consecutive month of growth.

According to Dow Jones, Mexicans have purchased 544, 852 new cars in the first seven months of this year, down 2.3% from the same period in 2002, while year-to-date production was down 14% to 926,787 and exports were 9.5% lower at 706,082.

Among companies posting hefty production drops in the first seven months of the year are Ford and General Motors – Ford turned out 97,848 vehicles, down 63.7%, and GM dropped 32.9% to 273,833 units, the report said.

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Meanwhile, Dow Jones added, Ford shipped 75,166 vehicles from Mexico, or 64.2% less than in the January-July period of 2002, while Nissan shipments abroad dropped 28.1% to 66,969 vehicles.