“Sales of new cars will decline this year below the values of 2012, which was a poor year anyway, while imports of Euro 3 and Euro 4 second-hand cars will hold steady or increase. The imports of non-Euro or Euro 1 and 2 cars (older than 15 years) will boom because of Romanians’ limited purchasing power,” said Constantin Stroe, vicepresident of Automobile Dacia and president of the Romanian Car Manufacturers’ Association (ACAROM).
The first pollution tax entered into force on January 1 2007, and was meant to protect the Romanian market from imports of old and polluting cars from the West, but the tax did not meet European norms.
Under the new calculation method, the pollution tax for an SUV with a Euro 1 3.0-liter engine from 1993 for instance will be less than EUR1,000 from almost EUR10,000 at present.
In Western Europe, countries introduced the pollution tax as an annual tax, calculated based on toxic emissions, while Romania continues to support the idea of a first registration tax.
While last year Dacia-manufactured cars were over 90% exported, this year the percentage will most likely approach 95%.
“The main concern of the two local manufacturers, Dacia and Ford, in 2013 needs to be finding new foreign markets for the cars manufactured in Mioveni and Craiova because one can no longer count on the Romanian car market. Dacia sales fell almost 30% last year on the Romanian market, a steeper decline than that of the market.
2012 was the fifth consecutive year of decline for the Romanian car market, to a little over 70,000 new cars sold, 80% less than in 2007.
On the other hand, as the pollution tax was cut by 25% in 2012, imports of second-hand cars doubled to over 170,000 units.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)