Ukraine imported over 500,000 new and used vehicles totaling $4.2 billion in 2020, which is $182 million less than during the previous year, the carmakers association UkrAvtoProm reported on Feb. 25.
The largest share of these imports were cars, totaling around 480,000, or $3.5 billion. Germany was the largest supplier of cars to Ukraine with around 100,000 cars worth $550 million.
The import of trucks and vans also decreased by 16% to 43,000 units, and suppliers of these cars earned $717 million as opposed to $842 million a year earlier.
The decrease in vehicle sales is part of a larger global trend. Vehicle sales decreased worldwide as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Worldwide, the total car sales market decreased by 14% over the course of the last year, down to just 66 million units. This is the lowest figure in the last decade, according to Canalys, a Singapore-based market analyst firm.
As car sales drop globally, electric vehicle sales are rapidly increasing in the European Union, China and Ukraine despite the hit to the car market caused by the pandemic.
In 2020, global sales of electric vehicles grew by 39%, up to 3.1 million units. In Ukraine, that number has been growing rapidly over the last several years — last year alone the number of electric vehicles doubled to roughly 44,000.
Ukraine has already created different incentives to facilitate the growth of the electric car market, including import duty exemptions, excise duties and a value added tax, which are still paid by those who import gasoline and diesel cars.
But Ukrainians are still largely purchasing used cars from abroad.
With more and more restrictions on diesel cars in places like Germany come into effect, prices on late model diesels have decreased, making them more affordable to Ukrainian buyers.
