Kimiyuki Suda should be a perfect customer for Japan’s car-makers. He’s young, su

ccessful executive at an Internet-services company in Tokyo and has plenty of disposable ____. He used to own Toyota’s Hilux Surf, a sport utility vehicle. But now he uses ____ subways and trains. “It’s not inconveient at all,” he says. ____, “having a car is so 20th century.”

Suda reflects a worrisome ____ in Japan; the automobile is losing its emotional appeal, ____ among the young, who prefer to spend their money on the latest electronic devices. ____ mini-cars and luxury foreign brands are still popular, everything in between is ____. Last year sales fell 6.7 percent, 7.6 percent ____ you don’t count the mini-car market. There have been ____ one-year drops in other nations: sales in germany fell 9 percent in 2007 ____ a tax increase. But experts say Japan is ____ in that sales have been decreasing steadily ____ time. Since 1990, yearly new-car sales have fallen from 7.8 million to 5.4 million units in 2007.

Alarmed by this state of ____, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA____ a comprehensive study of the market in 2006. it found that a ____ wealth gap, demographic (人口结构) changes and ____ lack of interest in cars led Japanese to hold their ____ longer, replace their cars with smaller ones ____ give up car ownership altogether. JAMA ____ a further sales decline of 1.2 percent this year. Some experts believe that if the trend continues for much longer, further consolidation (合并) in the automotive sector is ____.

A．profit

B．payment

C．income

D．budget