A period difficult for automobile
on January 10, 2006
An economic analysis of the sector, stated that "Although overall it could be said that cumulative sales of passenger cars in Europe during this 2005 are behaving very similarly to as did in 2004 and in line with the forecasts made at the time pointed to a slight decline in the same"", located in a - 0.42 per cent to 31 July (with a logical reduction of production of - 0.75 per cent to the same date), if we do a more detailed analysis of the situation in Spain these figures disagree".
Analyzing data from ANFAC in sales, production and exports in Spain is concerned, you can see how the cumulative sales of passenger cars to 30 September is growing 2.5 percent over the same period of 2004. Also it is the case that the logical sales decline from July to August for the holidays, August was the best August in history, with more than 96,000 registered cars. However, and despite the fact that these figures can invite optimism, if examines figures for production and export of vehicles is that the situation is not as buoyant as at first glance it might appear. August 31, and also data from ANFAC, the cumulative production of passenger cars in Spain had fallen - 11,34 percent over the same period of 2004, and a percent - 10,69 exports.
These figures show that the automotive industry in Spain is now more dependent on the domestic market than it was a year ago, and is to be expected that with the opening of new plants of production in countries of Eastern Europe mainly, this unit is made still clearer. Spain is a market that still has room for growth because the average age of its fleet, and good evidence of this is that today sold more cars than ever before. However, the rise in fuel prices, which has accumulated an average rise more than 25 percent since the beginning of the year, can be a brake on the purchase of passenger cars in the medium term.
From Acicae continues: at the level of the companies of components we find that the raw materials have continued rising price, added to this a cost of oil which has reached a historical levels and a decrease in the fall of the Euro against the dollarholding back in July the drastic fall started at the beginning of the year. The slowdown of the American economy, the high American interest rate (3.75%) with regard to the European (2%), the strength of the Euro against the dollar, the incorporation of new countries to the EU, are some of the factors that can make that Europe should focus on its own natural market (in itself) and is conducive to investment in new countries members of the European Union, but that is on the other hand penalizing exports to countries outside of this market.
Another also interesting to take into account is the high rate of growth shown in the second half of 2005 by China, with an annual growth of 9.5%, which has led to the transfer of investment in more expensive countries, such as Spain, China (as an example, the Mercedes Vito is manufactured in the near future in Vitoria and also in China). In addition, the currency reform initiated in China with the abandonment of the Yuan parity has not had consequences in the short term in the European market, medium and long term impact on the real and financial flows between different economic areas is difficult to assess at the moment.
The troubled situation faced by several of the large global manufacturers of vehicles, Ford, GM and most recently VW, and the "bankruptcy" of the largest manufacturer of components of the world, DELPHI, threat with a drastic reductions of templates in several European plants in order to reduce costs and compete well against Japanese manufacturersKorean, and more medium to long term, Hindus and Chinese, whose productivity ratios are well above the European plants and with labour costs are much lower in the last two cases.
All this can be a new twist in the prices by manufacturers, loss of contracts for the supply (mainly in piece comoditizada) for other countries with lower costs for Basque automotive companiesan increase in logistics costs and supply of raw materials, and a possible contraction in medium/long term of the programmes with the arrival of Asian manufacturers, traditionally little buyers in the Basque country. However will have to wait until early in the year that comes to see to what extent has affected all this to the production of Basque companies and to make a more detailed study of the causes and possible solutions.
