Measures ease supply problems in car market: Minister

ANKARA

The steps the government has taken over the past months have helped ease availability problems in the auto market, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat has said.

More vehicles were made available to consumers thanks to inspections focusing on stockpiling, Bolat said in a speech he delivered at an event by the Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO).

“Cars had to be taken out of the stocks and put on the market. Consumers do not hear dealers saying that ‘there is no car.’ This is also a period where it is not easy to raise prices in brand new cars,” the minister added.

Authorities resolutely carry out inspections and enforce penalties, according to Bolat.

“We want to ensure that trade is done in a fair way and there is competition in the market. We will root out the bad apples.”

Authorities also fight with exorbitant prices in the secondhand car market, Bolat said.

The measures, which foresee heavy fines for misleading and false advertisements placed on online platforms, have started to yield results, according to the minister.

“Prices in the secondhand car market have fallen between 10 percent to 15 percent.”

The decline in the price of secondhand cars may reach 25 percent by the end of the year, dealers said.

Both brand-new and secondhand cars are easily available in the market, they said, adding that the secondhand car market has been stagnant and weak demand leads to a drop in prices.

Previously people bought vehicles as they saw cars as an investment, said Gökhan Ardeşen, a dealer in Istanbul.

The new regulations on secondhand cars discourage people from buying cars in order to sell later at a higher price, Ardeşen said.

The combined sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles increased by 85 percent in August from a year ago to more than 85,000, according to the latest data from the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association (ODMD).

The pace of annual growth in passenger car sales slowed from 113 percent in July to 96.2 percent last month to 69,131.

The year-on-year increase in light commercial vehicle sales also eased from 138 percent to 55 percent to 20,300.

In the first eight months of the year, the automotive market expanded 66 percent, with passenger car sales rising 65.8 percent to 589,000. From January to August, 173,000 light commercial vehicles were sold, marking a 66 percent increase from a year ago.