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business newsCIVETS Watch: Pedal To The Metal
By
Carol Kopp
Mar 09, 2011 9:45 am
From Southeast Asia to Latin America, a new middle class is getting behind the wheel. Luckily for us, they're not buying planet-hating gas-guzzlers.
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In Colombia, wholesale vehicle sales in February were up 51% from the year before, to 25,527, according to local industry group Comite Automotor. The association predicts that 2011 sales will top last year’s sales, which broke records.
In Indonesia, February domestic car sales were up 24.8% over year-ago figures, to 69,489 vehicles. The figure is a decline from the previous month, when 73,761 vehicles were sold. Toyota (TM) is the biggest selling brand in Indonesia, but Mitsubishi displaced Daihatsu for second place, according to the Indonesian Automotive Association.
The most recent figures available for Vietnam, for January, show a sales increase of 48% from the year before, to 10,424 vehicles. That was the first annual increase in seven months in the country, where consumer demand for even basic necessities is suffering from severe inflation rates. Toyota is the most popular car brand there, too.
Egypt has temporarily fallen into a whole new nation category of one. “CIVETS In Limbo” perhaps. GB Auto, Egypt’s largest listed automobile assembler, said it expects car sales to bounce back quickly as the country returns to normalcy after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. However, it expects commercial vehicle sales to be slower to return to a healthy level because of the loss of tourism and a general economic downturn.
In Turkey, auto sales rose 88% in February from a year earlier, to 58,594, according to figures released this week by the Automotive Distributors’ Association.
In South Africa, sales of new vehicles were up 25.2% in February, to 49,164, according to figures from the country’s automobile manufacturers association. South Africa’s best-selling vehicle was the Toyota Hilux, followed by Volkswagen’s Polo Vivo and the Toyota Yaris. Among the American models seen as winners in the South African market were Ford Motors’ (F) Figo and General Motors’ (GM) Cruze and Aveo. The Financial Times notes that auto sales, benefiting from lower consumer interest rates, have been a bright spot in South Africa’s otherwise troubled economy, which is struggling against 25% unemployment.
Note: Virtually all of the CIVETS favorites are small fuel-efficient vehicles. Hopefully their middle classes will have the sense to squelch the impulse to buy SUVs.
In Brief:
Egypt’s Great Expectations: Sworn in this week, Egypt’s new government promises to revive the nation’s economy, attract job-creating foreign investment, fight corruption and improve public services. “Our priorities are to regain security and stability as fast as possible and to get the wheel of production rolling again,” said new Prime Minister Essam Sharaf after he was sworn in Monday.
Some experts figure he and his new cabinet have got a grace period of about a month to get it done.
As Washington Post columnist David Ignatius points out, political realities and differences are only beginning to emerge in Egypt, after the euphoria of their brief and successful revolution.
In an early test of their devotion to democratic ideals, Cairo had its first Town Hall-style meeting this week. The event kicked off the presidential campaign of Amr Moussa, considered a leading contender to replace Mubarak, the New York Times reports.
Last Stand For Colombian Kidnappers: Just when Colombia appeared to have left behind its reputation as the home of narco-funded guerrillas, 23 oil workers employed by a contractor for Canada’s Talisman Energy (TLM) were kidnapped by FARC rebels while working in a remote jungle region of the eastern Vichada province this week.
Just one day later, 21 had been freed and another escaped on his own, while 500 soldiers continued to search for the last hostage and his captors. In an announcement, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said “We are not going to rest until all hostages are freed and the country is free of kidnapping.” Talisman Energy and its partner, Colombia’s Ecopetrol (EC), were exploring for oil in the area.
Turkish Industrial Output Soars: Industrial production increased 18.9% in January, according to government statistics released this week. The results easily out-paced expectations of a 14.8% increase. The boom in manufacturing is broad-based, but the outstanding performer is auto manufacturing, which gained 30% year over year, the Wall Street Journal reports. Turkey produced 1.13 million vehicles in 2010.
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