Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), a global provider of roll-on/roll-off shipping and vehicle logistics services, has entered into an agreement with its partner company Groupe CAT to acquire the latter's 50-percent share in CAT-WWL, a joint venture of 10 vehicle-processing facilities based in South Africa.
The business of American chemistry expanded 3.6 percent in 2015 despite global headwinds that included a strong appreciation of the U.S. dollar and a weakness in several key global markets.
The Russian light-vehicle market has suffered its worst monthly decline of the year, which comes after a year of consistent accelerated falls in sales as a result of the collapse of the Russian economy, resulting from the weak ruble, sanctions from the EU and the U.S. and falling oil and gas prices. Sales in November fell by 42.7 percent year on year (y/y) to 131,572 units, which brought the year-to-date (YTD) sales momentum down further by 34.5 percent y/y to 1,454,253 units.
Automotive manufacturers have all the tools they need to detect safety issues in the early stages of vehicle production. The problem is, they're not making use of them.
The Western European passenger car market recorded another strong uplift in sales volumes in August with a 10.3 percent year-on-year rise in sales to 706,041 units, according to the latest IHS Automotive forecast. This further pulled up the year-to-date increase for the first eight months of the year by 8.5 percent year over year to 10.07 million units. Following August's result, the final adjusted trend-cycle seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales showed its highest level since February 2010 with a figure of 13.4 million units.
Iran has traditionally been a high-volume automotive market, whose geographic advantage has endowed it the potential to serve as a production hub in the Middle East. The recent lifting of economic sanctions has burnished the country's reputation as a business hotbed, with the automotive market expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.4 per cent from 2014 to 2022. Unsurprisingly, global original equipment manufacturers, suppliers and other market participants are exhibiting unprecedented eagerness to be a part of the Iranian growth story.
A draft agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus Germany - which would see the former reduce its nuclear activities in return for the gradual ending of economic sanctions, would have a positive impact on the future of the Iranian automotive industry.
