The Hindu Business Line : India ranked 11th in OICA global car output for 2005

The International Organisation of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA) rankings for world car production for 2005 are out. But India has barely managed to hang on to its 11th position as it grew a mere 7 per cent compared with 30 per cent the previous year.

What is also significant is that OICA rankings have arrived nearly three months late. According to an e-mail sent by OICA Secretariat to Business Line, the annual rankings were delayed because the "statistics committee had to check some figures which seemed to us incorrect."

According to OICA, an 87-year-old Paris-based organisation which is also the governing body of international auto shows, India is no longer the fastest growing in terms of production among the top 12 passenger car producing countries in the world in 2005. This position has been taken over by China, which grew 24 per cent to 30.78 lakh units. In 2004, China's car production grew 15 per cent and for India it was double that percentage. Such a huge jump in percentage allowed India to jump two positions in 2003 to the 11th position in 2004.

In 2005, India ranked eleventh produced 12,64,000 cars. The top three car producing nations also maintained their rankings. Japan lead with 90.16 lakh cars posting a growth of 3 per cent, same as last year's. Germany grew 3 per cent to 53.50 lakh car units compared with 1 per cent in 2004 and the US grew 2 per cent to 43.21 lakh car units. In 2004, it registered a negative growth of 6 per cent.

Reasons for slowdown

ASK Raymond James Assistant Vice-President, Mr Kalpesh Parekh who tracks the auto industry in India, said that one of the reasons for slower growth in 2005 was because the customers preferred to buy other products as they realised that better cars were on their way. "The consumer durables, in fact, showed a higher growth last year. Cars was one of the few sectors which did not show good growth," Mr Parekh said.

Country head for Nissan India, Mr Neeraj Garg said that the slow down was because of capacity constraint experienced by several automobile manufacturers in the country.

"This year and the next should see more cars being manufactured in the country as capacities are being expanded," he added.