This January was the first when Ford, too, contributed to the car production of Romania with the 6,000 B-Max cars assembled in its plant in Craiova (south of the country). Dacia made the remaining 29,000 in Mioveni, a figure driven by the new Logan and Sandero generations launched in the second half of last year.
“It was only natural that production should go up in the first month of the year because of the start of manufacturing at Ford Craiova and because of the new Dacia models. However, 2013 looks like it will be a very difficult year,” said Constantin Stroe, vice-president of Automobile Dacia and chairman of the Association of Automotive Manufacturers of Romania (ACAROM).
“If we are very optimistic at the beginning of this year we might suffer great disappointment later in the year,” Stroe added.
The production increase also drove exports up 7.8% to almost 27,900 vehicles last month, the highest ever in January.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)