Car registrations in line with economic development

We discussed shortly the development of the car registrations in the CEE region year-to-date, yesterday. There are quite substantial discrepancies between performance in Croatia and Poland as opposed to Czechia or Slovakia. These discrepancies in car registrations development goes hand in hand with economic development. Croatia and Poland grew at the strongest pace among CEE countries (excluding Serbia that is not covered with car registrations data). Further, consumption growth is also very solid in these two countries. On the other hand, private consumption growth in Czechia and Slovakia close to 1% on average in the first half of the year is way weaker compared to Romania, Poland or Croatia. The other factor that may be of importance is the growth momentum i.e. whether private consumption has been accelerating or decelerating. Finally, Car purchases belong to durable goods consumption that will be related to the overall financial conditions of the households as well as their propensity to consume as opposed to the. propensity to save. The development in the EU as a whole will be strongly influenced by the underperformance of German industry and economy.