Saudi Arabia’s car imports dropped by more than a fifth in 2018 to 440,992, compared to 554,581 for the previous year.

According to business daily Al-Eqtisadiah, car imports last year were the lowest in 14 years, while it was the third consecutive year that the industry had witnessed a drop.

The value of car imports also dropped by 18.4 percent to SR35.6 billion in 2018, as opposed to SR43.6 billion in 2017.

According to official statistics, the Kingdom imported 113,659 sedan cars in 2018 - down 88,501 cars compared to the previous year when the imports were 475,722.

The number of imported trucks in 2018 were 44,464 against 67,247 in 2017, a drop of about 18.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the imports of trucks went down by 22,783 vehicles (about 33.9 percent) to reach 44,464 compared to 67,247 cars in 2017. The imports of buses dropped by 2,333 cars (about 22.2 percent) to reach 8,169 from 10,502 the previous year.