Chevrolet is having a hard time satisfying demand in Uzbekistan.
Though the country's flagship industrial enterprise, a General Motors plant, recently produced its two-millionth unit since opening in 1996, that’s not enough to go around in Uzbekistan, where the economy is tightly controlled and high tariffs push imports out of most people’s reach. Adding to the shortages, many of the cars, produced under a joint venture with the hard currency-strapped Uzbek government, are sold in Russia and Kazakhstan.
So GM, which took the joint venture over from Daewoo in 2008, enjoys something of a monopoly in the country and yet fails to satisfy local demand.
Demand spilled into chaos this week when potential buyers of the Chevrolet Matiz, Nexia and Cobalt stampeded a dealership in Tashkent, a video shared by Olam.uz (and above on YouTube) purports to show.
Acquiring a car in Uzbekistan is not a simple process: Much like in the era of Soviet shortages, buyers must queue and leave an 85-percent deposit to get on a list. At that Tashkent cash collection point (oh yeah, and the cars, in practice, can only be purchased for dollars) on August 7, fears of yet another shortage lead to the chaos (and the bloodcurdling screaming), reported Olam.uz.
Though it’s unclear if anything other than Tashkent’s image was hurt, the Uzbek government may wish to think if exporting its limited supply of cars (and gas…) is worth these kinds of scenes.
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