
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991                   TAG: 9102190128
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ROANOKE AREA'S NEW-CAR SALES RISE

January was a good month for new-car sales in the Roanoke Valley, despite the well-publicized problems of U.S. automakers.

The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association reported Monday that 604 new cars - 396 domestic cars and 208 imports - were sold last month in Roanoke, Salem and Roanoke County, a 4.7 percent increase over the 577 cars sold in January 1990 and double the 302 cars sold in December, traditionally a poor month for car sales.

The local results counter announcements of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. which this month reported a record combined fourth-quarter loss of $2.1 billion. Chrysler's small profit was offset by big losses by the other two companies.

Moody's and Standard & Poor's have lowered their ratings slightly on the manufacturers' debt, but Moody's said it expects new models to be more successful than those of the past two years.

Roanoke banks cleared checks worth $157,161,768 against each other through the local clearinghouse last week, a drop of 35.8 percent from the $244,718,030 reported during a comparable week last year. The decline is due in part to a trend toward clearing local checks in Richmond. The figure for the previous week was $163,939,707 for a drop of 4.1 percent. - Staff report

by CNB