€110 million worth of cars imported in three years
Malta imported €110 million worth of cars in the three years between 2005 and 2007, according to statistics published by Eurostat, yesterday.
Yet, the figures show declining volumes. While the island imported €41 million worth of cars in 2005, imports fell to €38 million in 2006 and to €31 million last year.
At the same time, Maltese exports of motor vehicles were minimal, amounting to just €4 million in value between 2005 and 2007, leaving the island with one of the highest trade imbalances in the EU27.
Germany remained the strongest among the car manufacturing countries and last year exported over €40 billion worth of cars, 57 per cent of all the EU car exports. Far behind are the UK, exporting €8.4 billion worth on cars in 2007, and France with €3.4 billion worth of cars.
Germany also leads the imports classification and last year imported €8 billion worth of cars. Other big importers were Belgium, with €4.1 billion, followed by Spain, at €4 billion.
Last year, the EU27 exported motor cars to the value of €71.1 billion. Imports in the same year amounted to €33.6 billion.
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Ewout Wierda
Sep 6th 2008, 11:50
It is clear that the Maltese car fleet has a relatively high average age and a relatively low standard of luxury compared to what I see in cities all over Europe. To assess how this reflects the standard of living (as well as the environment and safety) one would need to know the number of new and used imported cars per year, the number of cars scrapped per year, the number of existing cars, the average age of cars in Malta, etc. I think the data will confirm that the prices of cars are high, the amount spent per car is relatively low, and the average car is relatively old, un-environmental and unsafe. High prices no doubt have an unfluence on the preference for small and cheap cars, like road congestion. Still, in say Holland, cars are just as expensive and roads just as full but cars are newer, and more expensive. The reason is GDP per capita. To turn this on its head: in order for the roads to be safer and the environmental impact of traffic to be reduced Malta will need lower car taxes or a higher GDP per capita. Anyway.. is that €110m for building roads!?
Denis Bartolo
Sep 5th 2008, 22:41
Of which 55% are taxes in registration fees and vat.
Do I stand to be corrected????
Charles Camilleri
Sep 5th 2008, 16:31
Definitely not a bad figure considering the poor state of the Maltese standard of living. ( according to labour writers)
Albert Bezzina
Sep 5th 2008, 13:22
While the value of imports (does this include commercial vehicles too) has decreased substantially from 2005 to 2007, the number of vehicles imported showed minimal fluctuations. This reflects the rise in market share of imported used vehicles. In spite of a reducing value of imported vehicles, Government claimed that in 2007 registration tax collected (all vehicles) amounted to over Lm30million or €70million. Quite an increase from the Lm23million (€53million) collected in 2004. This phenomenon of reducing value of a stable number of vehicle imports concurrent with rising tax revenue can only be explained by the fact that new car imports attract a substantially lower registration tax on their CIF value than equivalent used vehicle imports - definitely going against Article 90 EC of European regulations.