MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina’s car production up 5% and exports 8% during February

Hundreds of cars ready to be shipped to Brazil.

Argentina's automotive industry made fewer cars in February than it did the previous month but output was up from the same month a year ago.

Vehicle production fell 10.4% from January but rose almost 5% from February 2010, the Argentine Automobile Manufacturers Association, or Adefa, reported this week.

Auto production often slows in January, when much of the country is on vacation and when factories do maintenance, repair and capacity enhancement work. Car makers produced 42,051 cars in February, compared with 40,106 a year earlier.

In January production totaled 46,948 units.

Year-on-year car exports were up about 8% to 25,091 units from 23,205 a year earlier. Compared with the previous month, exports fell about 31% from 36,444 in January.

About 79% of Argentina's car exports went to Brazil while around 8% were shipped to Europe and 3.6% each to Mexico and neighboring Uruguay.

Sales to local car dealerships rose just over 14% to 56,457 units from 49,384 a year ago. Sales fell 2.5% from January.