“No one is debating the export phenomenon any longer, which is real. We have an official share of cars registered and deregistered of 3.5% in the first five months of the year. Besides them, many cars were reexported without going through the registration process at all and they take the percentage towards 25%,” said Alin Radu, general manager with Suzuki Romania representative office.
“This is a strategy developed since 2009, but volumes went down somewhat in 2013 and 2014.”
Romania exported almost 2,700 cars in the first five months of the year, 715 of which had been registered on the local market after December 2013. They accounted for about 3% of the total cars registered in January-May.
“For lack of other options, dealers are trying to boost revenue by selling cars to Western European countries. EU membership has its ups and downs and its ups include the possibility to sell on other markets without paying taxes. In the long run, however, this is a losing policy, because those are cars that do not come back for servicing and they are sold at a very low profit,” Radu added.
Reexports show not only in registration but also in sales figures. According to the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA) officials, “even though the volumes in the first five months of the year include, as found by analyzing most companies, volumes of generated by trade inside the EU, they do show a consolidation of the positive trend lately.”
The reexport phenomenon started in 2009, when importers got as many cars as they should have sold on a 300,000-car market (the 2008 level), but the market had halved so dealers resorted to reexporting some of those cars. At the time, Western European countries were conducting clunkers programs so demand for new cars was high. The solution allowed some dealers to stay afloat, after 25% of the 400 dealers in business in 2008 closed by 2013 on a market that lost 80% of its volume.
New car dealers are not the only ones using this solution, operational leasing companies do, too. They sell the cars returned by customers when the contract ends to the dealers that offer the best price, regardless of their country.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)