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Japan New Cars Sales Up 4 Percent; Up 5th Straight Month

Honda Motor Company's Fit subcompact continues to drive a strong domestic passenger car demand in Japan.

The January figure is up four percent on the year to 259,000 units--excluding mini-vehicles according to a survey compiled by the Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun last Saturday.

Besides the Fit, other vehicles that carried the torch were Nissan's Cube and March as well as Mazda's new Demio. Toyota Motor Corporation's new ist also fueled the higher sales figures.

It should be noted that all of these vehicles are relatively low-priced sub-compacts. The newspaper noted that larger vehicles, particularly minivans continued to sell poorly in the land of the rising sun.

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