The ministry, which usually releases car sales data on the first working day of the following month, will issue later on Monday only partial data, the spokesperson added.

"The postponement was needed to allow the registration of data not entered on Sept. 30 due to technical problems," Anfia, Federauto and Unrae industry associations said in a joint statement.

(Reporting by Cristina Carlevaro, editing Gianluca Semeraro)