The start of Ford car manufacturing at a steady pace this yearcould contribute a few tens of thousands of the cars manufacturedon the Romanian market, helping keep local car production at almost300,000 units, whilst Automobile Dacia is preparing for a declinein demand.
Last year demand for Logan and Sandero models prompted Dacia toraise the production rate to 1,340 automobiles/day, which resultedin a rise in Romanian car production by 20.9%, to more than 296,000units. In the last few months of the year Ford only produced 300Transit Connect vehicles.
Dacia representatives said, however, that demand for 2010 is notguaranteed, after the schemes meant to boost car markets will beeither discontinued (in Germany) or will have lower funds available(in France).
"I cannot give any figures for the time being as to the volumeof exports to Western Europe. The uncertainty of these marketsleads us to expect a sales decline. As far as Romania is concerned,we intend to preserve our turnover," said Fabrice Cambolive,commercial manager of Automobile Dacia.
2009 was the best commercial year in Dacia's history, with itstop export markets being Germany (almost 85,000 units), France(65,956 units), and Italy (almost 22,000 units) but Germany will nolonger run a scrappage scheme in 2010, while France has already cutthe scrappage bonus from 1,000 euros to 700 euros, and will furthercut it to 500 euros in the second half of the year.
Ford originally expected to sell around 30,000 vehicles in 2010,mainly utility vehicles, but the figures could be exceeded, becauseof the B-max model being produced in Craiova starting in the secondhalf of this year, and of the 250,000-unit production targetannounced for 2011.
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