“The number of registration establishments and inspection lines which are operating normally can meet the inspection needs of people and businesses nationwide this year because the highest monthly demand for inspection across the country was just over 500,000 vehicles,” said Nguyễn Chiến Thắng, director of the Vietnam Register (VR).

However he added that due to the uneven geographical distribution of registration centres, there can be shortages in some areas. 

According to VR, the country has 274 out of 294 registration centres operating, with 446 out of 546 inspection lines working to complete a minimum monthly inspection capacity of 642,240 vehicles.

In addition, there are a large number of vehicles that will have their registration automatically renewed according to the provisions of Circular 08/2023. Then there are vehicles that were temporarily suspended from operating and will now be inspected again, which will push the any overload of the system to the middle and late months of the year in 11 localities of Bình thuận, Đồng Nai, Đồng Tháp, Hà Giang, Hà Nội, Kon Tum, Lâm Đồng, Thái Bình, Thừa Thiên-Huế, HCM City and Trà Vinh, he said.

He noted that there have been long queues of motorists at centres in Hàn Nội and HCM City and that this could get worse when cases related to registration violations in localities are brought to trial.

More than 110 registration centres in forty two localities have been charged with violations and when these come to court, along with the higher number of vehicles needing inspections, this could lead to problems in up to 36 local areas. In particular, there will be some areas which do not even have local registration centres operating, such as Bắc Kạn and Thái Bình.

Response scenarios

According to numbers provided by VR, Việt Nam has 2,474 vehicle registrars and 900 of them are currently being investigated for possible violations.

In the case that all of them are in court simultaneously, in July this year, VR forecasts that 91 registration centres will have to close for three months, meaning they will not be able to re-open until the end of September.

Notably, these will be all of the centres under the VR management in Hà Nội and HCM City.

There is almost certainly going to be a problem of a backlog and serious congestion in the localities with a knock on effect particularly acute in Hà Nội, HCM City and Đồng Nai Province.

In cases where staff are tried and sentenced at different times, the closure of centres will not take place at the same time, so some units can be maintained.

At that time, it will be possible to transfer personnel from closed registration centres to other units to increase capacity, so the problems should be less serious.

To proactively respond to situations that may arise in the near future when cases are brought to trial and registrars are convicted with effective sentences, VR proposed amendments to Decree 139/2018/NĐ-CP and Decree 30/2023/NĐ-CP on business regulations for motor vehicle inspection services in the direction of eliminating cases of revoking the registrars’ certificates and temporarily suspending the operation of the registration centres to avoid the situation that the registration units do not have sufficient staff to operate.

The registration agency suggested the Ministry of Transport issue a written request to the cities and provinces’ Party committees and People's committees to strengthen management and guide relevant local agencies to prepare scenarios promptly responding to situations occurring during motor vehicle inspection activities. VNS