Vehicle sales continue to drive freight

Good news for those in the shipping industry involved in transporting vehicles, components and spares is that the global new vehicle market is expected to grow by 10% in 2012 to 83,5-million units. Although complex macroeconomic and geopolitical issues remain, strong vehicle production in the first half of 2011 is driving assembly volumes to exceed prior estimates. Markets in China and India are driving significant growth in the baseline global assembly estimates, says Calum MacRae, lead analyst with PwC Autofacts. Japan’s auto industry is expected to be back in full production by September. The faster-than-anticipated recovery has also contributed to the upward revision of the global assembly estimates, he says. South Africa is benefiting from the trend. The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) says the country exported 25 147 vehicles in July – an increase of 1 893 vehicles, or 8,1% compared to the 23 254 vehicles exported during July last year. It could have been better: “Whilst the momentum of new vehicle exports remained positive, the July export numbers had been adversely affected by the fact that various automotive plants had lost a few days of production during the month as a result of widespread strike action in the steel and engineering and associated industries,” says Naamsa in a statement. The eight per cent growth is better than the world average. Autofacts predicts that global light vehicle assembly will total 75,9 million units in 2011, nearly a 6% increase on 2010 levels. There are some areas of concern: Inflationary fears and registration quotas have contributed to a slowdown in vehicle sales growth in China. In response, the Chinese government has announced new incentives that could boost demand in the second half of the year from the 5.8% recorded in the first half. Europe’s sales environment remains weak to mixed across primary markets, but production is being supported by strong export growth to China, Russia, Turkey and the US. There has, however, been a mid-year sales slump in the US. However, the country is still on track to produce nearly 13 million units – or a million more than in 2010.