Consumption of Major Goods Decreases Sharply

Consumption of major consumer goods is decreasing sharply.
According to a report released on September 17 by the National Tax Administration (NTA), sales of new cars from early this year to July-end were no more than 142,055 units, a 75.3% (432.692 cars) decrease than last year's (574,747 units) for the same period.
During the same period, the sales of airconditioners decreased by 1,956,000 units from
last year's 4,752,000 to this year's 2,796,000 and in the case of refrigerators, decreased by 318,000 from 1,134,000 to 816,000.
The sales of color-TVs decreased from 1,186,000 to 820,000 and washing machines from 642,000 to 485,000, a 25%~30% decrease.
In the soft drink industry, the number of bottles consumed decreased by 180 million from 1.51 billion for last year's seven months to 1.33 billion for this year's, the equivalent to a four bottle decrease per capita.
The sales volume of sugar decreased by 73,000 tons from 452,000 tons to 379,000 tons.
Due to these consumption decreases, the NTA's special consumption tax revenues decreased by about half from 1.54 trillion won to 0.85 trillion won and the NTA is concerned about the loss of tax revenues.