More than 500 million dollars. This is the value of last year's automobile imports in Romania. Is it a little, is it a lot? These figures are mind-blowing on a market where the (official) average salary barely exceeds 100 dollars. However, for a country with nine million families, the 45,000 imported cars bring joy - and a certain responsibility - in only 0.5% of households.
"Imports accounted for almost 40% of the Romanian auto market last year, which is a record-high," said Calin Popescu Tariceanu, president of the Association of Romanian Auto Makers and Importers (APIA).
In other words, out of 100 cars that were sold last year, almost 40% were imported, as compared to only 8 in 100 back in 1996. Practically, the main local carmakers - Dacia and Daewoo - have been losing ground every year to the foreign makes, while Alro no longer makes a difference.
"However, this is not such a high value, considering other countries with a significant car output, such as the Czech Republic, Poland or Hungary, where the share of imports is considerably higher," Tariceanu said.
According to the APIA official, in the Czech Republic (the "Skoda land') car imports account for 55% of the auto market, with even bigger percentages in the case of Poland (64%) and Hungary (78%), which are also car producers.
The outlook for the Romanian-based auto importers is positive for 2003, as well. "We estimate that imports will go up to 55-57,000 units in 2003," Tariceanu believes. Consequently, imports may come to account for 42% of the market, since the total volume of the auto market is estimated to grow to 130-138,000 units.
Still, how can imports grow four times in only six years, although the average wages are still the same - about 120-130 dollars monthly?
The answer can only lie in the growth of the leasing segment, which has exploded to more than one billion euros annually. Car leasing accounts for more than half of this amount.
In fact, this has determined the main auto importers to create their own leasing companies. Porsche Leasing Romania is the leasing company of Porsche Romania, importer of Audi, Porsche, Seat, Skoda and Wolksvagen, RCI Leasing is the financial division of Renault group, while the makes imported by the tiriac group (Ford, Mazda, Mercedes, Jeep, Chrysler and Hyundai) benefit from the services of tiriac Leasing.
Almost 60% of the 44,000 cars bought last year were in fact acquired in leasing, although the interest rates levied by the companies exceed 13-15% annually in foreign currency, unlike the ROL credit rates, which have dropped from 40% to 25%.
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