Luxury Motor Show takes on Used Car Market

At Cambodia’s first ever international motor show over the weekend, top-end car manufactures including Mercedez-Benz, BMW and Ford presented their luxury range of SUV’s, sedans pickup trucks and motorbikes. … Vehicle imports to Cambodia, which include cars, trucks and motorcycles, more than doubled to 1.9 million units last year and roads in urban areas have become extremely congested as car sales in the country have grown. But car manufactures said that many of the cars on the road are second hand and imported by independent car dealers, a trend that is hampering the domestic market for new automobile sales. … Pily Wong, cofounder of the Cambodia Automotive Industry Federation (CAIF) and CEO of Hung Hiep (Cambodia) Co. Ltd, a Mercedez-Benz dealership, said, “Second-hand cars unfit to be on the road in other countries come into Cambodia often sliced in three pieces under the label scrap metal. The cars are then put together in the roadside repair shops. This saves importers money on tax.” … “The industry growth in Myanmar and Vietnam has put a lot of pressure on the Cambodian automotive business and we hope will create enough buzz to fight for more regulation and make us winners,” he said. …

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