Fiat continues to lead in new car sales, followed by Skoda and Renault

New car sales increased by 19% year-on-year in January, continuing a rebound from the second half of last year and sparking hopes that the country's economic revival is under way. Samar, an agency monitoring the car market, wrote in its monthly report on Tuesday that the public bought 28,201 new passenger cars last month, against 23,637 in January 2002, putting the increase down to discounts on last year's models, cheaper car loans and government measures to stem imports of second-hand cars from the EU. However, for the full y-o-y, new passenger car sales dipped 6% to 308,158 units. Fiat, with a market share of around 20% held its leading position, followed by Volkswagen's Skoda (12%) and Renault (10%). (Reuters) J.K.