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Engulfed by recession and high unemployment rate, Spain's new car sale for 2012 has plunged by 13.2%. According to Spanish car makers' association ANFAC, it was a dismal December when new car sales plunged 23% from a year ago, which led to this steep annual decline last year with little expectation of improvement in 2013. This is the lowest level ever recorded since data collection began in 1989. A similar situation is affecting France as well, where new car registrations hit a 15-year low in 2012. ANFAC commented that the figures could have been worse if not for a new car subsidy scheme introduced by the government on 1 October 2012 in an attempt to offset the effect of a 3% hike in value added tax that was introduced in September 2012. Most economists expect the Spanish unemployment rate to remain above 25% in 2013 and its economy to endure another year of recession. Spain, which is the Eurozone's fourth-largest economy, has been hit particularly hard by the collapse of the country's housing market, which forced the government to bail out the Spanish banking sector with assistance from the EU.