| ‘RABLA’ – A SUCCESSFUL CAR SCRAPPING PROGRAM 28/04/2010 |
| (2010-04-29) |
| Last updated: 2010-04-29 13:38 EET |
Environment Minister Laszlo Borbely said the car scrapping program was a success, adding that in 2010, over 55 thousand new cars will be bought in Romania through this program. Launched five years ago, the RABLA program led to the replacement of more and more old, polluting cars each year. While 14,600 cars were replaced in 2005, in 2009 over 32,000 cars were replaced. This growth in the number of old cars being replaced with newer, cleaner cars is due to the improvement of conditions for the program, improvements provided by the Environment Ministry, which manages the program.
The bonus given by the state went up to about 900 Euro, and starting this year, anyone can use up to three vouchers when buying a new car, so the state subsidized discount can reach 2,700 Euro. Starting this February, the program actually drew in more people than the government had anticipated, so they decided to boost the number of vouchers. The Environment Ministry announced that over 85,000 old cars have been turned in.
The number of new cars bought through the program is around 12,500, which means that Romania now ranks second in Europe in the number of cars sold through improvement programs in 2010, according to a ranking by the European association of car makers. According to Minister Borbely, the Rabla program had a decisive contribution to raising the number of new cars sold in Romania this year. He also pointed out that over half of the 12,500 cars sold this way were made domestically. Recalling the strategic economic position of the car making industry, PM Emil Boc assured everyone that the government in Bucharest will continue its policy of supporting the auto industry through the Rabla program, adding to it governmental guarantees and state aid.
Another breath of oxygen for car makers are exports: the Dacia plant in Pitesti sold abroad over 80,000 cars in the first quarter alone, 33,000 of them in France. The Association of Car Makers and Importers is not as optimistic, though. Industry officials say that in the first quarter of the year, new car registrations went down 70% as against the first quarter of 2009. Brent Valmar, the vice president of the association, said that only one in four cars getting registered is new, and that over half of the cars brought from abroad are older than 10 years.
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2025-04-03
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