Overcoming "procedural" hurdles, cheap cars are about to hit the market

Agent confirms 30% price reduction

After 2 months of no cars from the 3 main markets of Thailand, Indonesia, and India being imported into Vietnam, since the beginning of March, the bottlenecks caused by the regulations of Decree 116 have been removed, causing the number of imported cars to increase sharply. According to statistics from the General Department of Customs, from March 9 to 15, 388 completely built-up cars were registered for import declaration into Vietnam with a total value of 10.6 million USD. Of which, cars with less than 9 seats continued to lead the import proportion with nearly 88%, equivalent to 341 cars with a total import value of more than 8 million USD.

Previously, in the first week of the month, right after the Ministry of Transport approved the Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) certificate provided by the Thai government, the Japanese ship MOL docked at SPCT - Hiep Phuoc port (HCMC) and brought more than 2,000 Honda cars including 4 models: CR-V, Accord, Jazz and Civic to Vietnam with a full set of certificates meeting the requirements of Decree 116. The above shipment was divided into 2 parts: 1,054 cars landed at SCPT - Hiep Phuoc port and 950 cars landed at Dinh Vu port (Hai Phong). The General Department of Customs said that out of the 950 Honda cars docked at Dinh Vu port, 302 cars were cleared through customs.

The car import market is expected to become more active in the next few months.

Despite the doubts, the Honda tax-free car batch has been announced with a price reduction of about 30%. Mr. Huu Minh, sales representative of Honda Cong Hoa (Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City), announced that the batch of cars that customers ordered from the beginning of this month has completed all customs clearance procedures, and will be delivered to customers by early April or at the latest in May. Compared to the predicted price based on the preferential tax rate calculation that the showroom had previously announced, the official selling price has not changed much.

Specifically, the CR-V 1.5 E version costs 958 million VND, the 1.5 G version costs 998 million VND, the highest price is the CR-V 1.5 L: 1.068 billion VND, a decrease of about 200 million VND compared to the 1.136 - 1.256 billion VND sold before and right after Tet. Honda Accord 2.4 costs 1.198 billion VND, Honda Civic costs from 758 - 898 million VND depending on the version, even lower than the 900 - 950 million VND that this store predicted before. The new car model appearing in the Vietnamese market is the highest-end Honda Jazz version, which is only priced at 619 million VND, the other versions are priced at 539 million and 589 million VND respectively.

The landing begins

Not only Honda, other businesses such as Ford, Suzuki, GM VN... are also rushing to import from Thailand, while waiting for VTA from the authorities of Indonesia and Malaysia. Toyota VN representative said that this unit has completed all the procedures required by Decree 116 of Vietnam to import cars from Thailand and Indonesia. Due to applying for the certificate in advance, the cars imported from Thailand will be available earlier, around June to arrive in Vietnam. It is expected that cars imported from Indonesia will arrive at the port around August.

A sales representative at Toyota Thanh Xuan showroom (Hanoi) informed that recently, imported car models such as Rush, Fortuner, Yaris, especially Wigo have been inquired a lot by customers. However, due to requesting certification from the Thai and Indonesian governments later than Honda, Toyota's imported car models are not yet available for sale, and are expected to arrive around July and August. "The cars have not arrived yet so there is no new selling price yet, however, if there are no additional fees or taxes, the car price can be reduced by 20-30%," said the sales representative.

Ms. Huong, a saleswoman at Chevrolet Giai Phong showroom (Hanoi), also said that the Chevrolet Colorado imported from Thailand will be available around May - June, and there is currently no information on price adjustment.

After Decree 116 of the Government and Circular 03 of the Ministry of Transport guiding the implementation of Decree 116 were issued, most car import businesses considered VTA to be the most "difficult" procedure among the car import conditions that must be met.

However, this procedure only makes it difficult for companies with cars originating from the Asian market because businesses importing cars originating from Europe have almost immediately announced the completion of the procedures. Car companies, mainly luxury car companies such as BMW (Truong Hai), Jaguar Land Rover or Volkswagen... also continuously bring the first batches of cars that meet Decree 116 into the country. Thus, if the Ministry of Transport accepts the VTA from the Indonesian Government, tax-free imported cars may flood into Vietnam after a long period of silence.