MEXICO CITY (Reuters – Mexico’s 2021 auto sales increased 6.8%, but they are far below the pre-pandemic level as the automotive industry struggles to deal with shortages in semiconductors.

Mexico sold 1,014,680 vehicles light last year according to the figures of the national statistic agency (INEGI). Sales fell 27.9% in 2020 to 950,000.063 which is a nine-year record. In 2019, 1.3 million light vehicles were sold, while 2016, which saw record sales of 1.6 million, had fewer.

Fausto Cuevas is the head of Mexico’s Automotive Industry Association (AMIA). He recently stated that Mexico’s auto industry would not return to pre-pandemic levels until late 2023, or even 2024.

A global shortage of semiconductors has caused a slowdown in car production. Automakers around North America have implemented rolling shut downs to curb their output.

In the second half last year, the bottlenecks in the industry caused sales to plummet. This was the worst quarter in four years.

The automakers rely on semiconductors for many systems, including safety and navigation. Production has been slowed by COVID-19 epidemics at Asian semiconductor manufacturing centers.