According to customs cargo declarations in Azerbaijan, 70,900 new cars were imported in 2007. For the next four years, Azerbaijan is expected to import more than 300,000 new automobiles.

Automobile fleet of Azerbaijan has exceeded 800,000.

The number of motor vehicles in Malta rose by 1,767 in the fourth quarter of 2007 as the number of newly-registered vehicles continued to outstrip the number of vehicles taken off the roads, according to recent media reports on the Internet. New vehicle licenses actually rose by 3,138 between October and December last year.

59 percent vehicles were new and the rest were imported second hand vehicles. On annual basis, the number of new vehicle licenses in Malta reached 12,589 in 2007, a drop of 1.8 percent from 2006.

There was a drop of 1.3 percent in new vehicles and 2.5 percent in imported used vehicles.

Second hand car buyers in Malta recently filed a judicial protest in the Civil Court claiming that the imposition of vehicle registration tax and VAT on imported second-hand cars was in violation of EU law.

The four men said the money requested of them by the authorities were in violation of the EU Treaty.

In fact, the European Commission had already warned the government of Malta that the imposition of registration tax and VAT on the importation of second-hand vehicles was illegal and abusive.