The FINANCIAL — According to Today's Zaman, the Turkish automobile sector is close to breaking an all-time vehicle sales record by the end of this year.
Toyota Turkey Sales and Marketing CEO Ali Haydar Bozkurt on Friday said every sector in Turkey has been affected by the global financial crisis. He added that they, as Toyota Turkey, did not set a sales target for 2009 but sold many of the vehicles in stock thanks to the state's Private Consumption Tax (ÖTV) incentive, which had been implemented in previous years.
“The ÖTV incentive has decreased the burden on the vehicle sector. But officials from the government had underlined that in 2010 there wouldn't be any such tax incentive program and that sector representatives should make their sales plans accordingly. Therefore, we had set lower sales targets for this year,” said Bozkurt. He noted there were no signals for an economic recovery in 2010 since the effects of the crisis were still ongoing.
“Everyone was expecting to witness an economic recovery in 2011 but, unexpectedly, the markets recovered,” said Bozkurt. According to the marketing and sales CEO one basic reason for the recovery was the low interest rates, since interest rates are vital to the sector — 70 percent of all sales involve loans. “Whereas vehicle fleet sales decreased in 2009, they recovered this year, which also caused a jump in sales figures. Until now the sector has done very well, and I think we will surpass the historic record of 729,000 vehicle sales in 2005 by reaching 735,000 sales by the end of this year,” asserted Bozkurt.
Separately, Bozkurt noted that the elections are not really affecting the markets. “Ten years ago any negative news, even if small, could shake the whole economy, and exchange rates and interest rates would change. When we look at the past seven years, despite some negative developments there is no change in either interest rates or exchange rates. This is because the business world and every single individual are behaving in a more conscientious manner,” said Bozkurt.
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