Algeria: Car Imports Dropped By 13.56 Percent in 2014

Algeria’s car imports dropped to US$ 6.34 billion during the year 2014, against US$ 7.33 billion during the same period in 2013, down by 13.56%, said the Algerian Customs’ National Centre of Data Processing and Statistics (CNIS).

The number of imported vehicles decreased by 22.3%, from 497,187 cars between January and November 2014 to 386,316 during the same period a year earlier, said the CNIS.

After the significant increase in car imports in 2012 with over 600,000 cars imported for nearly US$ 7 billion, this trend has been reversed since mid-2013, according to the figures provided by CNIS.

Indeed, car imports totalled US$ 7.33 billion in 2013, against US$ 6.83 billion in 2012, while in terms of quantity, a total of 605,312 vehicles were imported in 2012, against 554.269 in 2013, down by nearly 9%.

For 2014, the Algerian Customs noted a 20.68 percent decrease in terms of value, against nearly 1 percent drop in 2013.

This downward trend is mainly due to the decline in the demand for vehicles as most households’ expenditures go to housing as well as to the high level of stocks.

This trend is also expected to continue in the future with the inauguration last November of the new Renault Algeria car factory of Oued Tletat (Oran, 432-km west of Algiers).

The car factory, which its initial production capacity is 25,000 cars per year, is expected to reach 75,000 cars per year in the second stage and an annual average of 150,000 cars in the final stage of production.

Out of the total of vehicles imported in 2014 by Algerian nationals, stand European brands, especially French and German ones on top of the list of imports, followed by Japanese and South Korean brands.