Argentina's automotive sector expects production to increase 10% in 2018 to around 530,000 units, levels similar to 2015, national automotive association Adefa said Monday.
The association also expects exports to reach 245,000 units, a growth of between 18% to 20% year on year, boosted by Brazil, but also by Central America, Adefa said.
"And the Argentine market we think will also have an important dynamic -- not as much as this year's [27% year-on-year growth], but we can reach 935,000 units [shipped], a 4% or 5% growth," Adefa's president, Luis Fernando Pelaez Gamboa, said.
"We begin to see that the equation starts to go in the direction it has to go: to produce more, to export more, and, in a robust market, it goes right in the direction of 1 million units [to be produced]," he said.
From January to November, Argentina produced 438,878 vehicles, up 1.4% from the same period a year ago. Shipments in January-November rose 22.2% year on year to 793,495 vehicles, and exports totaled 191,385 units, up 11.8% (64.3% to Brazil).
