Gov’t to impose restrictions on car sales

Some restrictions will be introduced for car sales to arrest the increase in car prices, Trade Minister Mehmet Muş has said, noting the respective regulation is ready.

Under the new regulation, companies, car rental firms, and car dealers will have to wait for a period of time to sell new cars they have bought, he added.

"Those entities are the main buyers of new cars. The new regulation will require that companies, car rental companies and dealers will be allowed to sell a new car only after it has covered 6,000 kilometers or six months after the newly bought car was first registered," Muş explained.

Some cars are put up for sale as "second-hand cars," immediately after they were purchased but this should be prevented, the minister said, noting that this kind of trade pushes up the prices.

Once the new regulation takes effect, consumers will have easier access to new cars, according to Muş.

The Competition Board is looking into whether some companies engage in price collusion, the minister said.

The Competition Authority recently launched a probe into four online second-hand car trading platforms to investigate whether they hinder competition.

The new move on car sales will help prevent profiteering, commented Altuğ Erciş, head of the Authorized Automotive Dealers Association (OYDER).

"We fully support this decision, which is designed to curb the rise in prices in second-hand cars and increase the availability of cars in the market," he added.

In July, passenger car sales grew 13 percent year-on-year to 41,000 units, according to the latest data from the Automotive Distributors' Association (ODD).

The passenger car market, however, contracted 7.9 percent during the first seven months of the...