Russian car sales to fall by 24% in 2015: manufacturers

Moscow: Car sales in Russia look set to plummet by nearly one quarter in 2015 as the economic crisis batters consumer spending, automobile manufacturers said Thursday.

The predicted fall of 24 per cent comes on the back of a decline in sales of over 10 per cent last year, producers said. “This year will be complicated,” said Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the automobile committee at the Association of European Businesses. “Nobody doubts that there will be a crisis, the question is how severe and long it will last,” he said. Russia’s energy-dependent economy has been hit hard by a double whammy of falling oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow’s alleged meddling in Ukraine.