Demand for eco-friendly vehicles high in used car market

The sale of environment friendly vehicles is on the rise in South Korea's used car markets as the government moves to reduce fine dust-emitting diesel vehicles, a local website said Wednesday.

Pre-owned car sales data offered by SKencarsales.com back up the trend. It said SK encar.com, a certified Korean used car seller here, reported a 26 percent on-year increase in sales in the January-June period from 5,644 units to 7,107 vehicles in 2017, a SKencarsales.com spokesman said.

SK encarsales.com is a secondhand car trading unit of SK Group, South Korea's third-largest business conglomerate centered on telecommunications, semiconductors, oil refinery and retail. 

Eco-friendly cars, such as electric and gasoline hybrid models, accounted for 1.4 percent of a total of the 491,985 used cars traded via the website in the first six months. It was also up from 1.2 percent in the year-ago period, he said.

During his presidential campaign, President Moon Jae-in pledged he would reduce fine dust emissions by 30 percent in the next five years by restricting the number of diesel cars on the street and shutting down old coal-fired power plants. (Yonhap)