New car registrations in Scotland in May totalled 13,115 units.

This shows an increase of 2.94% in comparison with May 2010 when 12741 new cars were registered.

* Download Scottish new car registration data for May 2011

The UK as a whole experienced a decrease of 1.74% with 150431 units registered against 153095 for May last year.

Douglas Robertson, chief executive of the Scottish Motor Trade Association, said: “We are pleased to see that the sales figures have continued their stabilization of the past few months.

"Perhaps now we are just beginning to see evidence that the second half of the year will show the improvement we have been predicting would happen around now since December of last year.

"With increasing fuel economy and higher standards of specification on new cars we believe that consumers will be well rewarded for buying a new car in the months ahead.

"All that is now needed is for the banks to increase the amount of affordable finance being made available.”