Vehicle sales rise 0.7% in September

Vehicle sales rise 0.7% in September

New vehicle sales in Indonesia in September rose 0.7 percent
on the previous month to 27,421 units, car assemblers'
association Gaikindo said Friday in Jakarta.

Commercial vehicles accounted for 25,204 of the sales, up 1.7
percent from 24,785 vehicles in August, Gaikindo said.

However, passenger car sales decreased to 2,217 units,
compared to 2,444 sales in August, Dow Jones quoted the
association's statement as saying.

The country's largest vehicle maker PT Astra International -
which has a joint venture with Toyota Motor Corp. to assemble and
distribute the Japanese company's vehicles in Indonesia - saw a
3.5 percent increase in sales to 11,230 units from 10,850 in
August, it said.

Total car sales in the first nine months exceeded 240,000
units.

Last year, total sales reached 299,629 units, slightly down on
the 300,964 units sold the previous year. Vehicle sales reached
383,605 units in 1997 when the economic crisis started, but fell
sharply to only 54,634 the following year.

The association initially targeted vehicle sales at 300,000
units this year, but in the middle of this year, it revised the
target up to about 320,000. -- JP