Car sales fell 82.4% in first semester of this year

JAKARTA (JP): Car sales plunged 82.4 percent to 35,789 units in the first half of this year, industry statistics published yesterday revealed.

The data, provided by the country's largest carmaker PT Astra International, showed that car sales for the first half of the year were sharply lower than the 203,212 units sold during the same period last year.

Astra sold 21,236 cars in the first half of the year, or 59.3 percent of the total.

Astra assembles cars carrying international brands including Japan's Toyota, Daihatsu, Isuzu and Nissan, Germany's BMW and France's Peugeot.

Astra and the country's other largest carmaker, PT Indomobil Sukses Makmur, have halted production due to the slump in domestic demand.

The Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries said last week there were still 40,000 new cars in stock.

Astra's survey showed a zero sale for the Timor in May and June. however, the "national car" company did sell 690 vehicles in the first four months of 1998.

The Timor sedans have been imported from South Korea's Kia Motors by PT Timor Putra Nasional, controlled by former president Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, under a controversial national car program.

Under the scheme, Tommy's company enjoyed import duty and luxury tax exemptions. The tax and duty account for about 60 percent of a car's sale price in Indonesia.

The company was also allowed to import completely built-up South Korean cars to be sold domestically as the national car pending the completion of the firm's assembly line in Cikampek, West Java in 1999.

All the tax facilities were cut following Soeharto's resignation in May.

The statistics also said motorcycle sales fell 70 percent to 258,151 for the first half of the year from 858,353 in the same period last year.

Motorcycle sales rose to 46,268 in June from 22,315 in May. But the June figure is a year-on-year fall of 129,375 motorcycles from last year. (jsk)