However, 93% of Dacia’s car production went to export, the highest level ever, because of decline on the Romanian market.
Exports to Europe account for 70% of the total, said Jerome Olive, Automobile Dacia’s general manager, and the European market is not necessarily looking very good at the moment. Medium-term outlook is not that reassuring, either, he added.
Renault-owned Automobile Dacia’s official also had something to say about the environmental stamp duty, after meeting with the Environment Ministry officials on Friday and journalists on Saturday.
The new stamp duty as proposed by the government will not only help imports of very old and polluting second hand cars, but also of Euro 3 and Euro 4 diesel cars, because of the almost 50% tax cut they get compared with the current level. This will cause an even more serious decline of Romania’s car market this year and of Dacia’s sales in its home market.
New car registrations fell by almost 20% to 66,500 cars, while imports of second-hand cars almost doubled to 175,000 units, after the 25% cut of the pollution tax in early last year. Dacia car registrations dropped by more than 30% on 2011 to 16,400 units in 2012.
The sales of cars to individual customers will go down by a further 50% this year if the stamp duty is enforced as proposed. This customer category declined by almost 50% last year, while sales to corporate customers remained about the same, said Thomas Dubruel, general manager of Renault Commercial Roumanie, Renault’s sales company in Romania.
Dubruel added the decline of Dacia last year was also because of end-of-life models. New models were introduced throughout the year and those with the greatest impact arrived in the last few months.
The government last week presented an ordinance draft on replacing the pollution tax with an environmental stamp duty that would lower the tax on Euro 3 and Euro 4 diesel cars by 50% and by almost 90% for the Euro 0, Euro 1 and Euro 2 cars, which are over fifteen years old.
This is the 11th modification of a first registration tax introduced on January 1, 2007, also known as the environment or pollution tax. The change comes after none of the previous versions of the tax was in compliance with the European legislation in this field.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)