ANNUAL passenger car sales worldwide will barely top 32-million in 2000, 3,3-million vehicles fewer than last year’s turnover, reducing sales to levels last seen in the 1980s, Britain’s Economist Intelligence Unit said on Thursday. “Overall world car sales will not exceed their 1997 peak volumes again until 2003,” the EIU said in an abstract from the report. After the collapse of demand in Asia, South America and eastern Europe will be the next markets to suffer, and recovery will take time. Ironically, the upturn will be felt first in Asia, with South Korea, India, China and Malaysia seen as growth markets by 2005. Russia is also a potential growth market, with demand likely to be 73% higher in 2005 than it was in 1998, “although this is also probably the most risky market in the world,” the report said.
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