Japanese made cars top Bahrain's shopping list, constituing more than 50 percent of the total number of annually imported cars. However, the percentage has decreased by 13.2 percent since 1990.
ASharq Al Awsat newspaper quoted “the data available at the Central Statistics Bureau,” as indicating that cars imported from Japan constituted 56.8 percent of the total number of cars imported from all over the world in the year 2000, 65.8 percent in 1999 and around 70 percent in 1990.
According to the report, Bahrain imported last year 12,679 cars from 30 countries with an increase of 11 percent over the number of cars imported the previous year, which reached 11,424. The costs of imported cars therefore increased last year to 62.1 million Bahraini dinars ($164.7m) from 59. 6 million dinars in 1999.
The newspaper said that the share of the Korean car market has increased by around 41.1 percent or to 1211 cars in 2000 versus 858 cars in 1999. The number of imported German cars increased from 760 to 1387 at a ratio of 82.5 percent for the same period.
French imported cars have also increased to 130 from 70 over the same period; British cars to 168 from 131; Austrian cars to 105 from 29, while the number of imported Canadian cars dropped to 249 from 352 during the same period, the London-based daily reported.
The population of the oil-rich state is 634,137 (July 2000 est. Estimate) -- Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
