MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2023) The Association of European Businesses (AEB) on Thursday significantly improved its forecast for sales of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) in Russia in 2023 and now expects growth by 45.6% to 1 million cars.
"After a significant drop in sales in 2022, we see the market is recovering and could reach 1 million of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles sold by the end of 2023," Alexey Kalitsev, head of the AEB of the automobile manufacturers committee, said in a presentation.
At the beginning of January, the AEB predicted the growth of Russian auto market to 770,000 cars.
Since Russia started a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, almost all EU or US car makers have suspended operations or pulled out of the market completely and the sales significantly dropped. This was followed by surge of imports from China. In June, the acting head of Russia's Federal Customs Service, Ruslan Davydov, told Sputnik that imports of Chinese cars to Russia between January and May almost tripled compared to the same period in 2022.
