JAPAN DATA: New vehicle sales in Japan tumbled at a..

JAPAN DATA: New vehicle sales in Japan tumbled at a record pace in
April as the March 11 earthquake disaster wrecked supply chains for
automobile production and dampened consumer sentiment, according to data
released today by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. New vehicle
sales plunged 51.0% from a year earlier to 108,824 last month, the
eighth straight month of a year-on-year decline, following a 37.0% drop
in March. The previous record decline was marked in May 1974, when sales
plunged 45.1% following the outbreak of the first oil crisis. The
association began compiling automobile sales data in comparative form in
January 1969.