New car sales down 7 per cent on last year
New cars sales for September showed an 28 per cent increase on the same month last year, but year to date new car sales are down 7 per cent, when compared with the first nine months of 2012, figures released today by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) confirm.
Alan Nolan, Director General of SIMI: ”The market in 2013 has been very difficult for the new car sales market with year to date registrations down 7 per cent on 2012, which was already 12 per cent down on 2011. The introduction of the new 132 registration plate in July has been the one bright spot in a very poor year, the second registration period having improved this year’s performance from 15 per cent down at the end of May to 7 per cent down at the end of September. The new dual registration plate system helped to make the most of the very low retail market this year and will continue to benefit the Industry and consumers in the future. However, there is no concealing the fact that 2013 has been the second worst year since the recession started. After 2009, with 59,000 new car registrations, this has actually been the worst year since 1993.”
It is in this context that SIMI is asking the Government to consider introducing a ‘Swappage’ incentive (€2,000 VRT refund on new car purchase if trading a six year old car or older) in this month’s Budget. Such a scheme, as with Scrappage, wouldl have no cost to the State, indeed it should deliver an additional €80 million in VRT and VAT in addition to supporting some 2,200 extra jobs in towns right across the country. The additional jobs are worth an additional €50 million to the Exchequer, SIMI says.
“In 2008, the Exchequer collected €2 billion in VRT and VAT from new car sales. This year it will collect around €600 million. Swappage would help commence a return to increased revenues as well as protecting and increasing the 36,800 jobs currently in the Motor Industry,” Nolan added.
