Vehicle sales contracted in August for the third month in a row, largely on rejection of car loan applications under new guidelines, the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) reported on Tuesday.
The FTI’s automotive industry club reported overall car sales last month of 80,838 units, down 6.9% from the same month last year.
August sales also dropped by 0.3% from July.
Spokesman Surapong Paisitpatanapong said many financial institutions have tightened their car-loan conditions, resulting in fewer approvals and forcing local car distributors to cancel backorders over the past three months.
However the contractions in the past three months had not affected overall growth in vehicle sales for the January to August period, which totalled 685,652 units, up 4.2% on the same period last year.
The FTI's car sales projection for 2019 remains unchanged at 1.05 million units.