Manufacturers accelerate in growing car market
This competition gives Polish buyers a widening choice of domestically produced cars.
Last year, some 251,000 autos were sold in the country - a 4% increase over 1993 sales. That figure is a year ahead of the 1995 level predicted in a study compiled last July. By the year 2000, that same conservative report calls for car sales to peak at around 350,000 units.
Car-makers can avoid a tariff, now set at 30%, by building their product in Poland. Last November, Opel Astras started rolling off a joint General Motors-FSO assembly line. The firm's goal is "up to 10,000 cars a year," Zbigniew Lazar, the firm's public relations manager, said. Ford plans to start producing Escorts at its proposed plant in Plonsk.
The Astra ranked second in the mid-sized range last year; Fiat's Uno, introduced in 1993, topped the class. Peugeot, with 2,000 of its 405 mid-sized cars assembled from kits at the Fabryka Samochodow w Lublinie (FSL), has a comfortable 20% share of that market segment, according to Andrzej Nosinski, general manager of Peugeot Poland. Ford Escorts built here will mean additional competition.
Sales of imported vehicles slid by nearly 30% last year, although overall sales are climbing. Under an agreement with the European Union, tariffs have started falling, and will disappear by the year 2002. Foreign auto-makers with low and mid-priced products still plan to set up shop in the country. South Korea's Daewoo is currently negotiating to take over the FSL plant in Lublin, and Volkswagen-Skoda is already assembling cargo vans at Fabryka Samochodow Rolniczynch (FSR) Polmo in Poznan. Peugeot's Nosinski would not comment on how the Daewoo deal would affect his company's use of the Lublin factory.
Fiat Auto Poland SA also continues to produce its popular Cinquecento and Polski Fiat 126. And FSO continues to produce four models in its Polonez line - planning to increase production for 1995.
A wider choice for Polish car-buyers could mean a slower market for used cars, but Piotr Tonderski of the Automobilklub "Rzemieslnik," sponsor of the Sunday automotive swap-meet in Slomczyn doesn't see it that way.
"People will still be buying and selling used cars, because they're less expensive," he said. And, he pointed out, auto-swaps still make sense for people bringing in cars from abroad. Even with the import duties, "foreign cars are not that much more expensive" at a swap-meet, he said.
Japan's Mazda, for example, has no manufacturing operations in Europe. After sales of only 400 vehicles last year, Mazda is only importing cars individually.
"The market in Poland is difficult," Marek Siennicki, marketing manager for Mazda Motors Poland, said. "Last year, we sold cars from stock. But this year is different. Starting from this year, we are only selling a few cars, and we are only selling them on the basis of individual orders." But Mazdas do appear at swap-meets, as Siennicki explained. Asked about the price of a used Mazda MX-3 sports car for sale at Slomczyn, the Mazda official said the same type of car, purchased through his company, would cost some 30% more.
"Such cars are often brought into the country perfectly legally, as personal property by Poles who have been living in Canada or the United States. They can sell them at car markets, and we can't compete." He added that the MX-3 is no longer available to customers in Poland.
Sports cars are not the only vehicles traded at swap meets. An entire section of the Slomczyn gielda is devoted to the small-sized Fiat 126p. And another section sells Ladas, Moskvichs and other bargains from the former Soviet Union.
Last year, some 251,000 autos were sold in the country - a 4% increase over 1993 sales. That figure is a year ahead of the 1995 level predicted in a study compiled last July. By the year 2000, that same conservative report calls for car sales to peak at around 350,000 units.
Car-makers can avoid a tariff, now set at 30%, by building their product in Poland. Last November, Opel Astras started rolling off a joint General Motors-FSO assembly line. The firm's goal is "up to 10,000 cars a year," Zbigniew Lazar, the firm's public relations manager, said. Ford plans to start producing Escorts at its proposed plant in Plonsk.
The Astra ranked second in the mid-sized range last year; Fiat's Uno, introduced in 1993, topped the class. Peugeot, with 2,000 of its 405 mid-sized cars assembled from kits at the Fabryka Samochodow w Lublinie (FSL), has a comfortable 20% share of that market segment, according to Andrzej Nosinski, general manager of Peugeot Poland. Ford Escorts built here will mean additional competition.
Sales of imported vehicles slid by nearly 30% last year, although overall sales are climbing. Under an agreement with the European Union, tariffs have started falling, and will disappear by the year 2002. Foreign auto-makers with low and mid-priced products still plan to set up shop in the country. South Korea's Daewoo is currently negotiating to take over the FSL plant in Lublin, and Volkswagen-Skoda is already assembling cargo vans at Fabryka Samochodow Rolniczynch (FSR) Polmo in Poznan. Peugeot's Nosinski would not comment on how the Daewoo deal would affect his company's use of the Lublin factory.
Fiat Auto Poland SA also continues to produce its popular Cinquecento and Polski Fiat 126. And FSO continues to produce four models in its Polonez line - planning to increase production for 1995.
A wider choice for Polish car-buyers could mean a slower market for used cars, but Piotr Tonderski of the Automobilklub "Rzemieslnik," sponsor of the Sunday automotive swap-meet in Slomczyn doesn't see it that way.
"People will still be buying and selling used cars, because they're less expensive," he said. And, he pointed out, auto-swaps still make sense for people bringing in cars from abroad. Even with the import duties, "foreign cars are not that much more expensive" at a swap-meet, he said.
Japan's Mazda, for example, has no manufacturing operations in Europe. After sales of only 400 vehicles last year, Mazda is only importing cars individually.
"The market in Poland is difficult," Marek Siennicki, marketing manager for Mazda Motors Poland, said. "Last year, we sold cars from stock. But this year is different. Starting from this year, we are only selling a few cars, and we are only selling them on the basis of individual orders." But Mazdas do appear at swap-meets, as Siennicki explained. Asked about the price of a used Mazda MX-3 sports car for sale at Slomczyn, the Mazda official said the same type of car, purchased through his company, would cost some 30% more.
"Such cars are often brought into the country perfectly legally, as personal property by Poles who have been living in Canada or the United States. They can sell them at car markets, and we can't compete." He added that the MX-3 is no longer available to customers in Poland.
Sports cars are not the only vehicles traded at swap meets. An entire section of the Slomczyn gielda is devoted to the small-sized Fiat 126p. And another section sells Ladas, Moskvichs and other bargains from the former Soviet Union.
