F&I Management & Training

Global car markets could take five years or more to return to pre-recession levels, according to industry experts. Meanwhile, Professor Garel Rhys, of Cardiff Business School, said that if the UK new car market continued to decline at current rates, sales could fall to only 1.4 million vehicles by the end of the year. Following March's 30.5 per cent drop in registrations, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is predicting 2009 sales will total 1.7m. Professor Rhys says that he does not expect recovery in the UK and world markets to start properly until 2011 and that full recovery would not come until 2013, at the earliest. He also warned that the speed of the recovery in the car industry would depend on the pace of economic recovery. In the United States it took the industry 20 years to recover from the Great Depression. Howard Wheeldon, a strategist with BGC Partners, said: "It's highly unlikely we will see the levels of 2006-7 reached any time in the next five years. It depends a bit on what governments do with incentives, although that will be an artificial impact. But for the near-term, people will be most concerned with whether they have a job."

DATED: 08.04.09

FEED: AW