2019 witnessed a fierce race among manufacturers and distributors to reduce prices to attract more buyers.

Despite sale promotion campaigns launched by manufacturers, the car market remained gloomy in the last months of the year.

Cars from Thailand led the market in the first 10 months of 2019, while fewer Chinese products have been imported because of the controversy about China's map with nine dash line.

Car dealers have halted the import of Chinese cars but are expected to resume early next year.

Vietnam’s automobile industry not only has to compete with veterans Thailand and Indonesia, but also with new manufacturers in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Experts believe that in the immediate time, Laos and Cambodia will not be rivals on the same par with Vietnam.

In the first half of the year, the number of cars imported to Vietnam increased by 500 percent, while some models saw a sharp increase of 650 percent compared with the same period last year.

If supporting industries cannot develop and automobile joint ventures continue importing car parts for assembly, Vietnam’s automobile industry will not survive after 2025, analysts say.

CBU (complete built unit) imports have been flooding the Vietnamese market while domestic factories have cut output, raising concerns among car part manufacturers that they may lose jobs.

Vietnam's automobile market is expected to set a new sales record this year with sales of the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturer Association (VAMA) members and TC Motors averaging nearly 32,000 cars each month in January-September.

CBU (complete built unit) imports from Thailand account for more than 50 percent of total car imports and turnover in the first eight months of the year, according to the General Department of Customs (GDC).

Chinese automobile brands have quietly returned to the Vietnamese market after many years of absence.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) has proposed raising luxury tax on some car models with fewer than nine seats.

The CBU (complete built unit) imports to Vietnam in the first seven months of the year were five times higher in number than in the same period last year.

Experts think the plan to spend $4.3 billion to develop the automobile industry will be in vain.

Under the EVFTA, Vietnam will open its market to imports from EU with the preferential tariff of zero percent.

Vietnam has become a large market which earns billions of dollars for Thai and Indonesian manufacturers each year.

There are two clear investment tendencies in the automobile industry. First, becoming the leading assembling center in Southeast Asia, and second, buying technologies and making automobiles for export.

Twenty years ago, five large automobile manufacturers asked Vietnam to open the automobile market. But the proposal was refused.

VietNamNet Bridge - Experts last year predicted that many automobile manufacturers in Vietnam would have to shut down after the ASEAN tariff fell to zero percent in 2018.