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Industry Exec Says Russian Car Sales May Fall 6% This Year

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Russian car sales for the year could fall by around 6 percent but will likely stabilise in 2014, the chairman of a lobby group for Europe's top automakers said on Friday.

Sales of Russian cars have fallen for eight straight months as people held back on large purchases as the economy faltered.

"What we are dealing with is what the whole economy is dealing with," said Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the Association of European Businesses' (AEB) Automobile Manufacturers Committee, on the sidelines of an AEB event.

Full-year sales could fall to 2.75 million to 2.8 million cars, said Schreiber, although he stressed the figures were "just ballpark" as data for November and December are yet to be announced. AEB's prediction in October was for 2013 sales of 2.79 million units.

That would equate to a drop of 5 to 6 percent from 2012's sales of 2.94 million cars. In January to October sales of new cars fell 7 percent according to the AEB.

The AEB will announce its prediction for 2014 sales in January. Schreiber said it would be "a big surprise" if it exceeded its forecast for 2013.

Schreiber said he thought the industry had seen the worst of the sales fall and that he was looking towards a "year of stabilization" but said there were some concerns that the market could fall further.

Western carmakers including General Motors, Ford , Renault and Fiat have invested heavily in Russia.

"A certain stabilisation is not the worst thing to have, although it's probably fair to say that looking two years back, companies would have expected more from the Russian market than we're having," Schreiber said.

A government programme to subsidise credit-backed vehicle purchases to boost sales helped, he said, noting that interest rates charged for car loans can be around 15 percent.

"Who wants to pay these interest rates? Nobody," he said.