CAIRO: Egypt's car sales declined 36.3 percent year-on-year in June 2009, said officials at the Automotive Marketing Information Council (AMIC) in their bi-annual meeting last week. A total of 90,357 cars were sold in the year to June 2009, compared to 141,796 cars the previous year, with the volume of passenger cars decreasing the most by 38 percent. Buses were down 24 percent and trucks fell 36 percent, according to AMIC. AMIC figures showed a better monthly growth rate in 2009, with June taking the lion's share of sales, up by 23 percent from the previous month with 19,536 cars sold. Salah El-Hadary, secretary general of the Egyptian Automobile Manufacturers Association (EAMA), looked at the positive side, saying that while the report shows sales have slowed in the past year, the numbers are three-folds what they were in 2004. AMIC has 35 member automotive manufacturer and provides industry information on Egypt. Amr Nassar, general manager of marketing at Mercedes-Benz, spoke of AMIC's role in facilitating training for marketing professional in the industry in cooperation with the International Finance Corporation, focusing recently on how to deal with the financial crisis and how to follow market trends. Mostafa Hussein, chief of the board of AMIC, attributed the car sales boom witnessed over the last five years to tariff cuts as well as the increase in retail banking that facilitated car financing schemes. According to the report, SUV sales were the only bright spot in the report, growing 11 percent year-on-year, with 2,815 units sold compared to 2,531 the previous year. Overall total passenger car sales declined 38.2 percent, with 67,129 units sold compared to 108,679 in June 2008. Bus sales dropped 24.3 percent and microbuses grew 13 percent.
