Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Car sales have been witnessing the biggest boom in Bangladesh, boosted by a surge in bank finance and the buying spree by an emerging middle class, officials and market players said on Saturday.
During the first eight months of calendar year, the new care registered sales of an average 75 in a day, nearly twice the number registered compared to the same period of the previous year, according to state-run Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).
"We have estimated that this year, the number of new car registration would hit around 19,000 in the capital," a BRTA senior official was by the Financial Express, the country’s lone financial daily, as saying.
In 2007, sales of private cars in the country hit a record 11,941 units, which was more than 90 per cent than the figures of the previous year. Some 86 per cent of the cars were sold in the capital Dhaka.
Expansion of car financing facility by leading private commercial banks coupled with a shopping spree by the country's middle class people pushed the car sales to a record height, they observed.
Most of the country's banks have eased car financing rules, allowing increasing number of middle income people to buy private cars, an official at the Standard Chartered bank said "For years, Bangladesh's annual private car sales were even less than that of impoverished Myanmar. But we have noticed that since last year things started to change for good.”
BBN/SI/SI/AD-07September08-1:55 AM