Car sales see biggest boom in history as middle class goes shopping

Mahmuda ShaolinbrCar sales have been witnessing the biggest boom in the country's history, boosted by a surge in bank finance and the buying spree by an emerging middle class, officials said Saturday.brThe Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) said in the first eight months of calendar year, it registered sales of an average 75 new cars a day, nearly twice the number registered during the same period last year.brWe have estimated that this year, the number of new car registration would hit around 19,000 in the capital, a senior BRTA official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, as he is not officially allowed to talk to the press.brIn 2007, sales of private cars in the country hit a record 11,941 units, which was more than 90 per cent than the figures of the previous year. Some 86 per cent of the cars were sold in the capital Dhaka.brOfficials and sellers said expansion of car financing facility by leading private commercial banks coupled with a shopping spree by the country's middle class people pushed the car sales to a record height. brWe have seen that people in the middle income brackets are the main buyers in the past one and a half years, the BRTA official said.brAn official at the Standard Chartered bank said most of the country's banks have eased car financing rules, allowing increasing number of middle income people to buy private cars.brFor years, Bangladesh's annual private car sales were even less than that of impoverished Myanmar. But we have noticed that since last year things started to change for good, he said.brEasy car financing has helped boost the sales, allowing the country's almost all the mid-level managers to get loans to buy cars, he added.brAbdul Haq, the owner of one of the largest reconditioned car sellers in Dhaka, Haq's Bay, said the sales boomed despite anti-corruption clampdown on the politicians and businessmen and a state of the emergency.brSuddenly, there is a whole new group of people who are buying cars. We never imagined that a private tutor would buy a car. But they are one of the new group of car owners, Haq said.brHe listed garment merchandisers, mid-level managers of commercial banks and relatively well-off companies, families of expatriate Bangladeshis, small business owners, doctors working at small clinics and textile engineers as the new group of car owners.brThere is an intense competition among the companies to keep their quality staff. The companies are buying the cars for the staff. Cars are now mandatory perks for mid-level managers, Haq said.brBRTA officials said cars having 1300-1500cc engine capacity with a price tag of around Tk1.00 million are the top selling vehicles in the capital.