New car sales figures released on Wednesday showed the recession in the motor industry appeared to be bottoming out.

The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers said sales of new vehicles declined by 6.3 percent to the end of November.

It comes after the car industry has been in a decline for over a year.

“It just confirms that we are in a consolidation phase which hopefully will set a base for modest improvements,” NAAMSA’s Nico Vermulen.