BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.22
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Revenues of the vehicle market have halved due to a sharp decline in car exports and imports in January in Georgia, Trend reports via Georgian media.
According to the National Statistical Office, in early 2021, car dealers brought cars worth $32.88 million (a 56.5 percent decline).
Vehicles worth $24.88 million were exported from the country (a 54 percent decline), including cars worth $14.17 million exported to the Azerbaijani market.
Dealers are asking the government for help, writing off fines for violating customs procedures, and extending the customs clearance period for vehicles imported until May 2020 to the end of 2021.
Vehicle re-export from Georgia has dropped in half in 2020. The drop resulted in $329 million.
Re-export is 45 percent down compared to 2019. The largest decrease is noted in the direction of cars among the 10 major commodity groups by exports, where the decrease is more than $348 million, which means a decrease of 31.4 percent compared to 2019.
As auto importers said the decrease in export-import is not only related to the pandemic and the closure of borders. One of the main factors in the decline is the closure of the Armenian market. Armenia stopped importing cars from Georgia due to the increased customs tariffs by the Armenian government from 2020.
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