Production at Tychy will likely fall for a third-straight year Courtesy of Fiat

Fiat’s factory in Tychy, southern Poland, will produce roughly 350,000 cars this year, compared to around 468,000 last year and 40 percent less than in 2009, when it produced 606,000 cars. This will be the third year in a row that production has fallen in what is Fiat’s flagship European factory.

The figures were announced by the factory’s new boss, Antoni Greń, who did not specify what could happen to his firm’s Polish production line in the future.

Some 98.5 percent of the cars produced in Tychy are destined for export, mostly to other European Union member states.

Meanwhile, total new-car sales dropped by 7.1 percent in the EU in the first half of 2012, compared to the same period last year. In Italy, where most Fiat cars produced in Poland go, new car sales have slumped by roughly 20 percent in the last year.

After the first three quarters of this year, Fiat is number 10 in car sales in Poland, with some 9,600 Fiat vehicles sold, over 25 percent less than during the same period last year, according to statistics from industry monitor Samar.