While experts remain pessimistic about Vietnam’s automobile industry, pointing out that its great efforts in the last several decades have been in vain, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) still puts high hopes on the industry’s development.

VietNamNet Bridge - Sugar production – the industry which now enjoys the highest protection level from the State – is expected to ‘die’ when Vietnam cuts the sugar import tariff to five percent in 2018 as committed.

 VietNamNet Bridge – From 2018, the import tariffs on the car imports from the AFTA zone under the mode of complete built unit (CBU) will be lowered to zero percent. This will make imports cheaper than domestically assembled cars.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam's automotive industry could face major collapse under commitments to the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) which will abolish auto import taxes in 2018.

VietNamNet Bridge – The high taxes being imposed on automobiles would be cut sharply in a strategy to stimulate the demand and attract the investments to the Vietnamese automobile manufacturing.

Vietnamese and Japanese businesses plan to join forces with develop priority industries. However, they still cannot map out any business plans until a government’s action plan is approved.