Improvement in car sales may be due to rush before new law comes into force

According to car market analyst Samar, July was the first month for the last two and a half years when car sales were higher in comparison to last year. Passenger car dealers sold 28,300 vehicles, which is over 8% more than in July last year. Due to the increase, the drop in sales for 2002 has decreased from 19% to about 16%. Car dealers have so far placed almost 182,000 vehicles on the market this year. "The market should improve over the next few months, and sales will stabilize," said Adam Kolodziejczyk, the general director of Ford Distribution. He believes that the positive trend might be reversed if the government liquidates passenger cars leasing in September. This might cause the market to shrink by 15% to 20%. Fiat remains the market leader with 32,630 units, and Skoda trailing in second place with 19,332 cars sold so far this year. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 6) M.M.