Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Kazakhstan produced over 2,000 vehicles worth 12.1 billion tenge in January 2018, according to the Union of Enterprises of the Automobile Industry of Kazakhstan (KazAvtoProm), Kazinform reported.

“In January 2018, 2,105 units of vehicles (including passenger cars, trucks, buses, special vehicles and trailers) totaling 12.1 billion tenge were produced in Kazakhstan. The volume of output in physical terms exceeded the last year's indicator by 3.6 times. The production of passenger cars increased by 3.7 times, reaching 2,041 units,” the message said.

The sale of domestic car factories in the first month of 2018 reached 1,340 vehicles, which is 77.7 percent higher than last year's figure (754 vehicles).

The market share of enterprises of the auto industry increased to 41.2 percent compared to 30.5 percent in the same period last year.

Lada (763 cars), KIA (128), Hyundai (125), Ravon (96) and Chevrolet (46) are among the five most popular brands of passenger cars of Kazakh assembly in January.

As many as 99 cars in January were purchased by participants of the state program of preferential auto loans. They accounted for 7.4 percent of sales of cars of local production.

“The second year of restorative growth of Kazakhstan car production started with high indicators. The market share of KazAvtoProm exceeded 41 percent. And this is the second best figure in the history of the industry: two out of five Kazakhstanis who bought a new car in January, chose the offers of domestic enterprises,” Oleg Alferov, chairman of the board of KazAvtoProm said.

In January, the automakers provided a fifth of the total output of the machine-building industry. Against the backdrop of a 4 percent growth of the Kazakh economy, the contribution of the auto industry to the country's GDP grew 2.4 times and exceeded twice that of the light and pharmaceutical industries.

KazAvtoProm is a union which was established in 2015 and unites the largest participants of the Kazakh automotive industry. The share of enterprises-members of the union accounts for over 60 percent of the output of the Kazakhstan automobile industry and more than 40 percent of those employed in the automobile industry of the republic.

Car manufacturing is growing at an unprecedented rate in Kazakhstan and significant expansion is planned in coming years.

As of November 2015, the number of registered vehicles reached 5 million automobiles, a 63 percent growth from 2013 (a 10 percent compound annual growth rate). On average, there is a car in every second household in the country.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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