‘Our Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler sales have dropped by about 70% in the first quarter of 2009 compared with a year earlier. This can be explained by the ongoing financial crisis, first of all, so the customers’ paying capacity has decreased, and then, there are certain problems in the way the manufacturers promote their cars on the market,’ says Asmoto car show’s Sales Manager Evgeniy Vasilyev.

‘We’ve got about fifteen cars made in 2007 in store at the moment, and we are forced to sell them with a discount, that is, at a sacrifice. However, the manufacturing companies are willing to make up for our losses. As for the cars made in 2008, no discounts are offered on those, and the prices even rose by 7% in the first quarter of the year. We’ve got about eighty or ninety such automobiles for sale right now. We can’t offer any cars made in 2009 for the time being, but they are sure to arrive in the summer,’ he adds.

‘The drop in sales has surely affected out company, for one, a little proportion of the staff had to be made redundant,’ Vasilyev admits.