OREANDA-NEWS The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation from March, 1 resumes targeted programs to support demand for cars working through preferential car loans - "First car" and "Family car", said the head of the Ministry of industry and trade Denis Manturov at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, since March 1 this year we continue to launch a well-established program: social programs "First car", "Family car". Since this year, we have agreed on the amount of budget allocations in the government. Therefore, we expect that this will give an additional increase in production and support the automotive industry," Manturov said in the transcript of the meeting on the Kremlin website.

Targeted programs to support the demand for the car market "First car" and "Family car" were in effect from January 1, 2018 and assumed the provision of certain categories of borrowers a discount of 10% of the cost of the purchased car. During the first 4 months of the program, 85.94 thousand cars were sold on preferential terms, so the target of 80.6 thousand cars set for 2018 was reached in May.

In July, these programs were extended, however, the Cabinet increased the discount on the purchased car for residents of the far Eastern Federal district from 10% to 25%, allocating 15 billion rubles for the program. Due to this, in 2018 it was supposed to sell 45.1 thousand cars on the mechanism of preferential car loans, 5.8 thousand of them — in the Far East.

In July, Manturov told about plans to extend these, the most popular programs to support the demand for cars, for 2019, but it was difficult to name the amount that was supposed to be allocated for these benefits. However, at the end of the year, the market for new cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia grew by almost 13% to 1.8 million units and these demand support programs were not included in the short list of subsidies for 2019.