The UK became the largest equipment leasing market in Europe in 2012, according the annual survey of business volumes from Leaseurope.

Equipment leasing across Europe grew by 0.6%, to €236bn, in 2012, according to Leaseurope’s 2012 Annual survey, with the UK’s leasing sector growing 9.6% to €44.4bn, making it the largest market in Europe, above Germany, whose 1.1% growth left it at €43.2bn.

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When figures for real estate leasing are included, Germany maintains the top spot with €45bn new business compared to the UK’s €44.7bn.

This slight growth across all of Leaseurope’s member states, which has been adjusted for inflation, was largely driven by a 5.7% growth in passenger car leasing.

Despite the anaemic growth on a European level, some countries experienced high growth, most notably in Estonia, which saw new business volumes grow 27.2% to €946m, The Netherlands, up 26.9%, and Sweden, up 16%.

Rising economies Russia and Turkey both experienced strong growth, up 7.1% and 14.1% respectively. However, there were a number of economies that experienced significant declines.

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With a 52.6% fall in new business volumes to €121.6m, Greece experienced the sharpest contraction, however Portugal (43.6%) also experienced a notable decline.

Italian equipment leasing companies only wrote €13bn worth of new business, compared to €16.8bn in 2011, meaning new business volumes declined 22% for the fifth largest leasing market in Europe.

The Spanish market shrank 22.9%, from €5.3bn to €4.1bn.

Although less pronounced than in Italy and Spain, the French market also shrank, by 0.3%, to €25.1bn.

The total number of new contracts grew by just 0.4%, a figure heavily affected by severe drops in the number of contracts in Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy which fell by 41%, 38.9%, 20.9% and 16.7% respectively.

Turkey’s 3,558 contracts meant it saw the largest growth, at 104.3%, while the number of contracts in the Ukraine grew by 28%, despite business volumes falling by 16.5% in the same period.