Argentina's automotive sector expects production to increase 20% year on year in 2018 to around 565,000 units, national automotive association Adefa said Monday.
Argentina produced 472,158 vehicles in 2017, down from 472,776 in 2016.
Adefa also projected exports to jump 43% year on year in 2018 to 300,000 units, compared with 209,587 vehicles in 2017, up 10.3% from 2016.
Regarding domestic shipments, Adefa expects an increase of 5% year on year. Shipments for 2017 totaled 883,802 vehicles, up 22.5% from 2016.
"The improvement we project in our production and export programs is driven by the significant launches of national products and increased production, resulting from the permanent investment plans that are run in our industry," Adefa President Luis Fernando Pelaez Gamboa said.
According to Adefa, the improvement in domestic market demand plus the positive impact of Brazil's recovery after years of contraction are keys to the positive projections.
Gamboa added that the positive context to modify the projections is consistent with the work that has been done in conjunction with the government and the value chain, especially with the plan to produce 1 million units by 2023.
"A path that has allowed implementing different measures of impact for the sector such as the reduction of logistics costs, the modification of the internal tax, the agreement with Colombia, among others," Gamboa said.
Adefa will revise its projections every quarter meeting the behavior of domestic and foreign markets.
