Commercial vehicle sales in New Zealand crashed to their lowest monthly total in August since interest.co.nz began keeping records in 2002, figures released by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) show. Commercial vehicle sales tend to fall in August after stronger June and July months, but a weak July saw the subsequent August fall take sales levels to a new low of 1,076 sales in the month. Sales were down 33.3% from August 2008, while July's weakness showed in its 36.8% fall from July last year. New passenger vehicle sales have risen between July and August for the last four years, however they fell between the two months in 2009. There were 4,417 new passenger vehicle sales in August, down slightly from July and 22.3% below August sales last year. The annual total of new vehicle sales (passenger and commercial) in the year to August was 76,596. This is the lowest yearly total since our records began. In the 15 months between July 2007 and September 2008, yearly totals ran consistently above 100,000 new vehicle sales, before sales began to fall away in the year to October 2008. Registrations of used imported cars in New Zealand fell by almost 300 to 5,874 sales in August from July. However, the rate of year-on-year declines of used car imports slowed further in August to 15% below August 2008 levels. This rate of decline has consistently slowed since a 49% fall in February from the year before.
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