Poland/Enterprises/Automotive
Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Car producers in Poland have troubles – rising materials and energy prices raise production costs. This means higher car prices but it may be difficult as the local motor market has broken recently. FIAT is the first producer to announce price increase. Next year, its panda and seicento brand produced in Tychy, southern Poland, will be more expensive by 2.5 percent.
‘The decision is mainly connected with higher steel prices. I want to stress, however, that our price increase is lower than the growth of steel prices’, Czeslaw Swistak, FIAT Auto Poland CFO explained. The other car producers do not want to admit that prices may grow. ‘For several months now, we have seen car prices in Poland harmonising with those in EU. The process will go on and therefore one should not expect lowering prices. We have no decisions in that matter yet, however’, Andrzej Nosinski from Peugeot Polska said.
Some producers believe that price hikes may be avoided. ‘The costs reduction programme will allow us not to raise prices of cars from the Volkswagen group, i.e. Skoda, Seat and Audi brands’, Witold Malachowski representing the concern in Poland promised. ‘If zloty remains strong next year, we may keep our prices at the same level’, Marek Nawarecki from Citroen Polska estimated.
In fact, car prices in Poland keep growing, the research made by PricewaterhouseCoopers and eurocarprice.com show. Average car price in Poland has grown since September 2003 to September 2004 by 4.3 percent.
They are still lower by 12 percent from prices in Western Europe, which may mean price increases.