Brazilian body builders produced 10,336 units in the period January to June this year, up 26.8% compared with the 8,152 units manufactured in the same period of 2022.

The move to stricter emissions in January this year led to a fall in demand.

Truck sales in the Brazil fell by 8.8% in the first half of 2023, which was due largely to the introduction of new more stringent PROCONVE P8 (Euro 6) emissions legislation that came into effect on January 1, this year.

Introduction of new P8 emissions standards did not impact registrations, due to derrogation and high levels of P7 stock.

The Japanese market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw rebounded by 12% in the first quarter of 2023 after declining by 18% in the same period of last year.

The Indonesian market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw grew by 16% to 46,811 units in the first quarter of 2023 from 40,349 units in the same period of last year, as the domestic economy continued to recover from covid-related lockdowns.

The Malaysian commercial vehicle market over 2 tons gvw continued to expand in the first quarter of 2023, by almost 13% after growing by over 20% a year earlier.

The Philippine market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw shrank by more than 3% in the first quarter of 2023 after growing by 12% in the same period of last year.

Sales of commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw in East Asia’s seven main markets, excluding China, fell by over 2% year-on-year to 372,543 units in the first quarter of 2023 after growing just 1.6% to 364,641 units in the fourth quarter of last year.

Economic growth in the country accelerated to 4.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023, up from a multi-decade low of 3.0% in the whole of last year, as the country began a gradual recovery from the Covid pandemic.

This fall was sharper than the overall economy. Economic growth slowed to 3.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023 from 5.9% in the previous quarter and 8% in the whole of 2022.

The strong sales growth came about despite economic growth continuing to slow sharply in the first quarter to 0.8% year-on-year from 1.4% in the fourth quarter and 2.6% in the whole of last year.