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pipes needed for the construction. In March, Serbia's Gastrans invited binding bids to book capacity for the transit of natural gas via the pipeline. The total volume of available annual capacity is 395.2 GWh a day at the border with Bulgaria, 124.2 GWh per day at exit points in Serbia and 271.02 GWh a day at the connection with Hungary. The Gastrans pipeline is expected to start operation on the Serbian segment as early as 2020, and reach its full capacity during 2022. The operator of the Gastrans pipeline in Serbia is Gastrans company, a joint venture between a subsidiary of Russian oil and gas major Gazprom and Srbijagas. Last year, Gastrans received non-binding bids for the import of 9,139 GWh of natural gas via the link with Bulgaria and the transit of a total of 5,258 GWh per day of natural gas to Hungary. In February, the Energy Community said that Gastrans should offer 30% of the natural gas it will receive through Turkish Stream on independent markets.
9.1.2 Automotive sector news
Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in Turkey sank 56% y/y in April to 30,971 vehicles, the Automative Distributors’ Association (ODD) said on May 3. It added that sales dropped 48% across the first four months of the year. The decline came despite extended tax cuts introduced by the government to encourage purchases amid Turkey’s recession-hit economy. Sales of passenger cars and LCVs in Turkey decreased by 35.5% y/y in March to 49,221 units, previously released ODD data shows. In January, the ODD said auto sales in Turkey declined by 35% in 2018. A total 620,937 passenger car and LCV units were sold, down from 956,194 units in the previous year. Vehicles sales declined throughout last year—the only two monthly exceptions were February and March when sales increased by 0.09% y/y and 3.45% y/y, respectively. The market shrank 77% y/y in October, 68% y/y in September and 53% y/y in August. In December last year, auto sales were down another 43% y/y to 77,706 units.
91 TURKEY Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com