Thus, through to September, a total of 122,067 vehicles were produced with the fall in production exclusively due to the decline in the commercial van sector with Peugeot Citroën turning out a total of 10,100 of such vehicles against 12,883 over the same period of 2014, a fall of 21.6%.


In contrast there was a 4.6% rise in passenger vehicles produced exclusively in Portugal at Volkswagen’s Palmela plant that turned out 81,340 cars through to the end of September up from 77,762 in the same period of 2014.


Of this total vehicle production, 117,517 went to export markets, 96.3% of output and down 3% than the same period of last year.
This year saw Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom account for practically half of all such sales taking 26.4%, 13.4% and 9.9% of the made in Portugal vehicles.


The European Union as a whole took 76.9% of all exported vehicles with Asia representing 14.3% in total terms with China accounting for the vast bulk of this segment with 12.4% of the total vehicle exports and now outstripping the United Kingdom as an export market.
AJG/KAR //KAR.