VietNamNet Bridge – The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has just asked the municipal People’s Council’s approval to increase the registration fees for cars of less than 10 seats, not being used for transport services, from VND2 million to VND20 million ($100-$1,000).




According to the HCM City People's Committee, the current low fees cannot help curb the growth of personal cars in the city. While the development of infrastructure facilities does not keep up with the growth of personal vehicles, increasing registration fees is necessary to restrict the growth of personal vehicles.

The HCM City authorities also suggested to double the registration fees for motorcycles, from VND500,000 ($25) to VND2 million ($100).

The city also recommended to allocate 5 percent of the revenues from registration fees (around VND59 billion or $2.9 million a year) to the city police.

Meanwhile, Hanoi has already collected registration fees on cars of less than 10 seats, not being used for transport services, of VND20 million, and from VND2 to VND4 million for motorcycles.

In late 2011, the HCM City People's Council approved the increase of registration tax on cars to 15 percent. At that time, many deputies did not agree with this measure: increasing fees to reduce cars.

The reason is that most car buyers are rich and 15 percent of tax is not a big problem. They are willing to pay taxes to buy a car, so the goal to restrict personal cars through high fees is hard to be achieved.

HCM City now has more than 500,000 cars, of which nearly half are small cars and nearly 6 million of motorcycles. Infrastructure development does not keep pace with the growth of vehicles, resulting in frequent traffic jams.

M. Lan