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ECONOMY

Car companies fear downturn after scrap-bonus boom

Auto industry experts fear a sharp downturn in sales after this year’s figures have been dramatically boosted by the car-scrapping premium the German government introduced in January, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Thursday.

Car companies fear downturn after scrap-bonus boom
Photo: DPA

Latest figures show that the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ scheme, where consumers get a €2,500 premium for scrapping an outdated car and buying a new one, is continuing to stimulate the auto industry.

The number of new cars sold in June rose by 40 percent in comparison with June 2008, the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK) revealed Thursday. This represents a further acceleration of the already booming sales.

In the whole first half of the year, 2.06 million new cars were sold in Germany, representing a 26 percent increase. Small cars are in particularly high demand, while the premium has been especially popular in the former East Germany, a breakdown of the VDIK’s statistics showed.

But fears are growing within the industry that sales will plummet once the government stimulus expires at the end of the year, or when the €5 billion set aside for it is used up, the magazine reported.

“For 2010 we are expecting a total market of 2.6 million new car registrations,” said Rolf Dielenschneider, head of the German branch of the Volkswagen subsidiary company Seat. This would be one million less than this year.

With four-fifths of the cars made by German firms sold abroad, where conditions “are by no means rosy,” the mini-boom in the German market is no reason for “euphoria,” said Matthias Wissmann chairman of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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