Thailand’s car production drops 20% y/y in August, federation says

CAR production in regional automaking hub Thailand fell 20.56 per cent in August from a year earlier due mainly to weaker domestic sales, the Federation of Thai Industries said on Tuesday.

The figure compared with July’s 16.6 per cent year-on-year decline. It was the 13th straight month that production had contracted.

In the January-August period, car production contracted 17.69 per cent from a year earlier to just over a million units, the federation said.

Domestic car sales declined 24.98 per cent in August from a year earlier, after an annual drop of 20.58 per cent in July, it said.

Thailand is South-east Asia’s biggest autos production centre and an export base for some of the world’s top carmakers, including Toyota and Honda, with pickup trucks among the key vehicles manufactured.

About half of units are sold domestically, but the sector has suffered from weak demand, due mainly to high household debt and a significant tightening of loans, particularly for pick-up trucks.

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In July, the federation cut its domestic sales target for this year to 550,000 vehicles from an earlier forecast of 750,000 units.

It also reduced its production target to 1.7 million units this year, down from at 1.9 million vehicles seen earlier. In 2023, Thailand produced 1.84 million vehicles. REUTERS