OREANDA-NEWS. Ministry of Industry predicts a decrease of the Russian car market as a whole in 2015 (cars, light commercial vehicles and trucks) by 24% to 1.98 million units. It was announced at the conference "The Russian car dealers" by the head of the department of transport and special engineering of Ministry of Industry and Trade, Alexander Morozov, by noting that this estimate is optimistic and it takes into account the launched by the Ministry of Industry measures to support the car market. Without this support, the volume of the Russian car market this year could be 1.3 million units (-50%), says the agency "Tass."

Mr. Morozov said that the optimistic forecast of the market provides a 24% decrease in relation to 2014 and by a pessimistic scenario – it is a two-fold decrease compared to the last year. "We have made the relevant report to the government and demanded from the state the special support measures in order to leave at least from the "red" (pessimistic) scenario to the "green" (optimistic)”, - he said, by explaining how the ministry invoked arguments in the launch of programs of state support, which started on April 1st.

According to the Association of European Businesses (AEB), sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) in Russia in 2014 fell by 10.3% to 2.49 million units. According to the analytical agency "AUTOSTAT", the truck market in 2014 was 88,000 units (-20.5%). According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the total automotive market in the last year was 2.6 million vehicles.

The announced forecast of Ministry is close to the forecast of AEB, which estimated the market of passenger cars and LCV for 2015 in amount of 1,89 million units (-24%), but AEB does not account in its forecast sales of trucks.

Ministry of Industry in September of 2014 launched a recycling program, by extending it later to 2015, which made it possible to buy a new car at a discount, taking into account the scrapping of old one. On April 1st, 2015 it was also launched a program glad to support of the automotive industry, including the subsidy program for auto loans and support of operational leasing for individuals.