VietNamNet Bridge – Analysts have noted the car imports to Vietnam recently are mostly luxurious models and they are from ASEAN countries.

Luxurious imports on the rise

Vietnamese may feel full to satiety once nearly all the automobile brands, from popular to luxuries models, have been available in the domestic market. Especially, the recent months have witnessed the landing of a series of luxurious brands.

Before BMW and Audi made their presence in Vietnam, Mercedes Benz was the only name people mentioned when talking about luxurious cars. However, things have become quite different with more and more automobile brands having joined the Vietnamese market.

Analysts have forecast that the luxury car market would converge a lot of the world’s leading luxurious brands by the end of the year, including Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Porsche, Land Rover, Mini or Bentley.

Luxurious cars have been coming to Vietnam in great quantity, from small to big sized, from sedans to MPV or SUV.

It is expected that in July alone, a series of luxurious models would land in Vietnam, namely BMW Z4 sDrive Roadster, BMW 116i, 4 Mercedes A-Class, Mercedes S500L or Volkswagen Touareg 2013.

A report of the General Department of Customs showed that in the first six months of 2013, the import turnover of CBU cars (complete built units) from Germany, the UK or France was higher than that of the first half of 2012. Of the 16 countries and territories that export cars to Vietnam, the luxurious models are mostly from the three countries.

Lexus, sourced from Japan, is expected to be present in Vietnam by the end of the year.

In the first 6 months of 2013, the import turnover of CBU imports from Germany reached $29 million, or $9 million higher than the same period of the last year. The imports from the UK were worth $2 million, and from France $2.1 million.

Since the imports from the three sources are luxurious and expensive, the turnover is always very high, despite the low number of cars imported. The number of cars imported from Germany, for example, was lower than from Japan by 259 cars, but the import turnover from Germany was still higher by $3 million.

Imports mostly come from ASEAN

The report of the customs department has also pointed out the dominance of the cars imported from ASEAN and China, South Korea and Japan.

The turnover of the CBU imports from the countries, except China, increased sharply in both quantity and value.

The decrease in the imports from China has been explained by the fact that Vietnamese businesses restrict the purchases of trucks and specialized used vehicles in the context of the economic difficulties. Meanwhile, these are Chinese main export items.

The import turnover from South Korea in the first half reached $87.5 million (8,454 cars), an increase of $9.4 million over the same period of the last year. The figures were $59.8 million and 3,297 cars from Thailand, and $7.7 million and 683 cars from Indonesia.

Thailand and Indonesia are the two ASEAN countries, which would be able to enjoy the tariff of zero percent by 2018 under the AFTA commitments. Meanwhile, South Korea, China and Japan are the three countries which have trade agreements with ASEAN, under which the import tariff from the three sources would be 5 percent by 2018.

TBKTVN