Cyprus August New Car Sales Rocket 300 Percent

NICOSIA, Sept 8 (AFP) - Cypriot sales of new cars surged 300 percent in August from a year earlier, according to official statistics Wednesday.
Sales of all vehicles rose by 103 percent, while registrations of used cars rose by only 47.1 percent.
For the first eight months of the year, the total of new and used car sales picked up 42.8 percent 28,212 units from 19,752 a year earlier.
New car registrations more than doubled from 5,610 to 11,883.
The trend towards buying second-hand cars, mostly from Japan, is slowing because of a more favourable tax regime on new cars.
Up until August, new car sales made up 41.9 percent of the market compared to only 28.4 percent for the same period in 2003.
Legislation was approved last November, altering the consumer tax regime by calculating additional cost according to engine displacement and not the vehicle's market value.
Small- to medium-sized vehicles saw the biggest discounts, as vehicles with an engine size above 1600cc now also have a hefty road tax bill to pay.
The law was also passed to encourage the purchase of safer new cars, as 70 percent of the islands 490,000 registered vehicles were secondhand in 2003.