Domestic car producers struggling to fight off new and second hand imports

The volume of sales of passenger cars in the first quarter of 2002 dropped by 21.5% compared to the same period last year. According to data from Poland's largest automobile market research company Samar, 72,800 new cars were sold in the first quarter of 2002. Around 70% of these new cars were imported, which indicates the difficult situation of domestic car manufacturers. In March Fiat sold only 3,000 cars, while their average monthly sales is 5,000 cars. Fiat's spokesman Boguslaw Cieslar says this will be compensated in April and May. "Seicento is still selling well and we have introduced several new models. This allows us to be conservatively optimistic," he added. Deawoo-FSO, which usually sells 2,000 cars in a month, did not notice any drop in sales. Pawel Kosmala, sales director in Daewoo-FSO claimed that in March 38,000 second-hand cars were imported. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B2) M.T.