Invest News DetailHT Ekonomi - While European car markets have contracted in the global economic crisis, the surging demand in Türkiye has pleasantly surprised the automotive industry. Toyota Motor Europe President Didier Leroy likened Türkiye to a “rising star” in Europe, and said that the Turkish market led the increase in Toyota’s sales in Europe. Expecting sales to increase further over the next year in Türkiye and Russia, the Toyota executive added that the performance of the Saudi-based ALJ Group, which took over the distributorship of Toyota from Sabanci Group a year ago, was excellent. “We have foreseen the European market’s contraction by 3-4 percent this year but our sales in Türkiye were not affected. For this year, our new distributor is expected to increase sales from 25 thousand to 38 thousand cars. The sales will reach 50 thousand cars in 2011,” said Didier.