MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina’s car industry booming could reach 700.000 units in 2010

César Luis Ramírez Rojas, president of the Argentine Automakers Association

Argentina’s August 2010 car output reached 72,967 units, which resulted in a 52.6% rise regarding the same month of last year; sales to dealers totalled 61,599 units, or 44.8% more than in August 2009; and exports amounted to 42,526 units, representing a 45.6% year-on growth, according to the Argentine Automakers Association (ADEFA).

So far this year, Argentine production reached 437,149 units, surpassing by 50.1% the units that were recorded during the same period of 2009. Sales to dealers totalled 433,801 vehicles, a 38.5% growth compared to last year, while exports amounted to 267,058 units, a 52.4% rise with regards to January-August of 2009.

ADEFA president, César Luis Ramírez Rojas, said “this data manifests the sustained effort made by the terminals to increase production in order to satisfy not only the domestic demand, but also the requirements for the external market.”

He highlighted that, “within this framework, companies are also reinforcing their suppliers' development programme, for which, historically, 20% of their investments have been destined, which in the last triennium has reached 3.1 billion US dollars”, and he also said that, “added to all of this is a commitment under which efforts that aim at significantly increasing, in the next few years, the integration of national parts will be doubled, as well as generating global suppliers.”

Ramírez Rojas stated that “it's about working in conjunction with all the actors in the value chain and the public sector, in which everyone should contribute their main efforts in order to maintain and improve competition so as to recover external markets, which would contribute to the sector's long-term sustainability.”

On the other hand, and according to the records already registered in the first eight months, Ramírez Rojas considered that for the entire year “a production of 700,000 units can be projected, as well as 600,000 units in dealer sales, and exports that will be around 400,000 vehicles.”

The president of ADEFA, also based on the August results, highlighted that “the sector aims at being one of the biggest contributors to the growth of the Argentine manufacturing industry for the sixth year in a row, reaching an input of more than 30% of said growth, with a participation of 35% over exports of industrial origin. Aside from becoming, in this way, one of the sectors with greater incidence in the dynamics of production activity, it would be well to mention its employment generation, since for every new job post at the terminals, 4.7% jobs are created in the rest of the value chain”.