The FINANCIAL — Due to the devastating Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, the country’s whole automobile industry stopped producing cars last week (from 14 March). Although Georgian car dealers have enough car stocks for the coming weeks, the prices are definitely expected to rise in the coming months due to shortage of supply – as said by Japanese car importers in Georgia.
The FINANCIAL — Due to the devastating Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, the country’s whole automobile industry stopped producing cars last week (from 14 March). Although Georgian car dealers have enough car stocks for the coming weeks, the prices are definitely expected to rise in the coming months due to shortage of supply – as said by Japanese car importers in Georgia.
Japanese cars amounted to 22% of the total number of imported cars in 2010, i.e.10,038 units or 68 million USD worth according to the national statistics office of Georgia. In January of 2011, the number of cars imported from Japan amounted to over 1,000 units, (that of 6 million USD worth).
The United States and EU still occupy the biggest share of car import in Georgia.
Japan-produced cars are the cheapest ones offered on the Georgian market. On the used cars market Mitsubishi Pajero io (2001) costs 6,500 USD, Subaru Forester (2000) 4,500 USD.
Out of the overall import of Japanese goods, 90% amount to different types of cars and spare parts.
The car brands distributed in Georgia are the following: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Fuji (Subaru) and Isuzu.
Toyota suspended production at all of its plants on 14 March and Mitsubishi halted production at its three domestic assembly plants until at least 23 March.
Toyota Center Tbilisi declared that the current crisis hasn’t affected their sales yet although they don’t have information on how the new stock of cars will be distributed in Georgia.
Similarly Strada Auto PR Manager Tea Iremadze declared that secondary automobiles that they import are deemed to have price hikes although not in this or the coming week but they’re planning to increase the price in 3 months’ time in order to counter balance the deficit.
Honda and Nissan have also temporarily stopped operations in Japan while Fuji (Subaru) heavy industries, maker of Subaru cars, closed five factories.
Toyota has stopped production at more than a dozen assembly plants and parts factories, including body-making subsidiaries in the disaster area, Kanto Auto Works and Central Motors. The company said it will decide when to restart production after assessing the damage and the condition of its supply chain.
The disaster in Japan could also slow shipments of popular cars such as Toyota Prius to auto lots. Many car dealers are already taking advantage of expected shortages to raise price. In addition to Prius, the models that suddenly cost more include Honda’s insight, Fit and CR-V; Toyota Yaris and several Acuras and Infinitis.
As Lasha Gvalia, Sales Manager at Suzuki’s Georgian office told The FINANCIAL, the delivery of a new collection of cars is still under question. Suzuki brands destined for Georgia are assembled in Japan and distributed to Georgia from Dubai.
Subaru brands distribution could also be halted. “All the factories in Japan which produce Subaru or other brand cars have stopped functioning, so we’re going to see a deficit in the coming months notwithstanding European reserves which can temporarily save the market from crashing down.
As for other products delivered from Japan, they won’t have any serious effect or create a shortage of goods in Georgia due to the fact that they were imported in very small amounts, even some imports like frozen fish, curing materials and side shows were zero according to the latest figures from the national statistics office of Georgia.
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