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MOSCOW, July 8 (Reuters) - New car sales in Russia are expected to fall 36 percent this year, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) lobby group said on Wednesday, a more pessimistic forecast than it had previously given.
After years of growth in excess of 10 percent, car sales in Russia shrank in 2014 as the economy weakened due to lower oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.
In 2015, new car sales are seen at 1.55 million, down 36 percent from 2.49 million in 2014, the AEB said. It had earlier forecast a 24.5 percent drop to 1.89 million.
In June, sales of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia fell 29.7 percent year-on-year to 140,161 cars after a 37.7 percent drop in the previous month.
Although the pace of the decline was less dramatic than in preceding months, sales in the first six months shrank 36.4 percent to 782,094, the AEB said in a statement.
"Market sentiment for the remaining six months of the year remains muted," Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, said.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Polina Devitt and Alexander Winning)