Polish buyers took home 28,262 new cars last month, up 2% from June, and recording the first year-on-year sales rise in more than two years, Reuters reported.
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June new car sales rose nearly 9% year-on-year, after having fallen between 15% and 25% year-on-year in each prior month this year, Reuters said, citing a report by private car market monitoring agency Samar.
Analysts told Reuters that car sales in Poland have been boosted by a series of strict government measures aimed at stemming imports of used vehicles from the European Union.
To help local manufacturers including Fiat, General Motors and Daewoo, the government cut excise taxes on new cars and hiked taxes on second-hand vehicles, many of them insurance write-offs patched up by small-time workshops for sale, Reuters said.
The measures have led to an increase in prices of imported, second-hand cars and made locally-made models more competitive, the news agency added.
Reuters said that Poland’s worst economic slowdown in a decade and high credit costs nearly halved new car sales to around 327,000 units last year from a record high of more than 640,000 in 1999. In the first seven months of this year, Poles bought 181,564 new cars, the news agency added.
Reuters said that Fiat is the most popular car brand, even though its market share has shrunk to 18% so far this year from 26% last year, and its total 2002 car sales fell 42%.
Skoda and Renault held second and third positions respectively, with more than 10% each of the local market, Reuters said.
