Cars imported to Vietnam continue to be in short supply.

A car model imported to Vietnam before the end of 2017. Photo by HONG QUY

After Circular No. 03/2018/TT-BGTVT was issued by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) to guide the implementation of Decree 116 on technical safety and environmental protection quality inspection for imported cars, the imported car market has not made any progress.

A Honda Vietnam dealer in the southern region confirmed that they have not received any notification about when the next batch of CR-Vs will arrive. The dealer currently has only a few cars left.

Previously, a representative of Honda Vietnam said that they were still waiting for specific instructions. That means the CRV-2018 batch imported at the end of 2017 is the company's last batch.

Contacting some Toyota Vietnam dealers about the Fortuner model, all of these dealers confirmed that they no longer have cars to sell and are not accepting orders because they do not know when the cars will arrive and do not know the new selling price.

"There are currently no Fortuners left in the Southern market, and it will be the third or fourth quarter before the cars can be imported. Not just our dealership, but all car import companies do not have cars to sell. If customers want to buy them, they can only buy used cars," a dealership representative shared.

Previously, Ford Vietnam announced that it would not deliver cars to dealerships from February to June. Therefore, many of the company's dealerships are in a state of "selling whatever is in stock", said a sales staff at a Ford dealership in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.

For the Ford Everest line, it is confirmed that there are no more cars for sale and it will be around June before they can be available. For the Explorer line, there are currently very few cars left and if customers want to get a car, they must buy an additional accessory package for 200 million VND.

As for the Ranger pickup model, most dealers have vehicles for immediate delivery, but "the current price of the Ranger model has increased compared to the previous selling price," a sales staff revealed.

A series of car manufacturers unable to import new cars since the beginning of 2018 has also had a significant impact on the used car sector as the number of new cars sold on the market is low, car users do not change to new cars, causing the supply for used car businesses to become scarce, and purchase prices to increase. Meanwhile, these businesses themselves cannot import used cars for sale.

Honda Kim Thanh car dealer said: "Currently, all car models in the company are out of stock and have been pre-ordered by customers except for the Honda City model."

At this dealership, the cars pre-ordered by customers were all imported at the end of 2017, so they are still subject to a 30% import tax. Even cars delivered after 2018 are currently subject to a 30% tax because the documents have not been prepared.

Explaining the customers' choice to place orders without waiting for the import tax to be adjusted to 0%, the representative of this showroom said: "Currently, it is near Tet, customers buy more cars because they need to travel during Tet. Many people think that even though the import tax is reduced to 0%, they do not know how other tax rates will be adjusted, so they want to buy now instead of having to wait any longer."

Not being able to import cars is a common problem for most car companies selling imported cars in the Vietnamese market. So far, the companies have not found a solution to this problem.

Only 60 cars imported at the beginning of the year

According to the latest statistics of the General Department of Customs, in the first 15 days of January 2018, the whole country imported only 60 complete cars of all kinds. Of which, there were only 6 cars with 9 seats or less, the remaining 10 cars with more than 9 seats and 27 trucks.

This is a new shock to the imported car market in the first half of 2018. The number of imported cars in the first half of January 2018 is only a fraction of the previous month.

The number of imported cars has decreased sharply right after a series of car manufacturers announced to stop exporting cars to the Vietnamese market, including Toyota, Honda and some other car manufacturers due to Decree 116 tightening inspection of imported cars.

Since Decree 116 was announced, the governments of many countries such as Japan, Thailand, and the United States have expressed concerns that it will be difficult to export cars to Vietnam.