ASEAN vehicle sales up

ASEAN vehicle sales up

TOKYO (Kyodo): Combined sales of motor vehicles in ASEAN for this year are likely to exceed one million vehicles for the first time ever, a business daily said Saturday in a dispatch from Bangkok.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, quoting a Japanese auto industry estimate, said vehicle sales for the first half of the year in the six-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations increased steadily by 11.4 percent from a year earlier to 516,941.

The robust growth is attributable to a cut in import tariffs on motor vehicles and higher national incomes in that part of the world, according to the daily.

Vehicle sales are expected to lead consumer spending in ASEAN, made up of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Brunei.

For the January-June period, domestic sales of new motor vehicles in Indonesia surged 57 percent from the year before to 138,700, reflecting strong sales of small commercial vehicles and trucks.

In Thailand, the largest auto consumer in ASEAN, vehicle sales remained high at 228,000, although they were down 2.1 percent from the year before.

Sales in Malaysia and the Philippines gained steadily by 6.3 percent and 15 percent, respectively, to 84,400 and 42,300, the newspaper said.