Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15
By Nigar Guliyeva – Trend:
Official dealers sold 46,377 cars in 2017 in Kazakhstan, which is by 5.8 percent higher than in 2016, KazAvtoProm said in a message.
During the reporting period, Kazakhs spent $1.12 billion for purchasing new cars, which is 28.6 percent more, compared to the previous year.
The car sales in December 2017 (4,679 units) outperformed the same period of 2016 by 4.2 percent. The volume of the market in value terms in December reached $ 119.3 million, exceeding the indicator of December 2016 by 15.6 percent.
Furthermore, 30,484 cars (65.7 percent) sold in 2017 were imported, while 15,893 buyers (34.3 percent) made choice in favor of Kazakh cars.
"In 2017, the car market of Kazakhstan began to see growth after a long decline in 2014-2016. I'd like to remind that during this difficult period for the Kazakh economy, the sale of new cars in the country fell by 3.6 times. Recovery began in March 2017 and today the market demonstrates positive dynamics for three consecutive quarters," said Oleg Alferov, chairman of the board of the Union of Enterprises of the Automobile Industry of Kazakhstan "KazAvtoProm".
He said that the industry forecasts were justified and the official dealers ensured sales growth by 5.8 percent by late 2017.
"This is a moderate pace, but the stability of the current sales dynamics is important. In the second half of the year the market reached a steady sales around the mark of 4,700 cars per month. In the currency equivalent, the market dynamics looks impressive, as the annual expenses of Kazakhs for the purchase of new cars increased by 29 percent up to $1.12 billion, and the highest financial result over the past 28 months was reached in December - $119 million," Alferov said.
He said that in 2017 the growth of world prices for Kazakhstan's products ensured the acceleration of GDP growth to four percent and provided a more predictable exchange rate of the national currency. These fundamental factors, according to him, will create conditions for a more active market recovery in 2018, and industry growth will be at least 25 percent.