Automobile imports fall by 33% in January

Automobile imports fall by 33% in January

Viet Nam imported 3,000 completely built unit cars (CBU) worth US$58 million in January.

This was a decrease of 33 per cent in volume and 55 per cent in value compared with the previous month, the General Statistics Office has estimated.

The office attributed the decrease to the 10-day-long holiday of the Lunar New Year (Tet).

However, the import volume in January is 9.9 higher than the corresponding period last year, the office said.

The country imported 34,500 CBU cars worth $709 million last year, an increase of 25.9 per cent in volume and 15.2 per cent in value compared with 2012.

The rising number of imported vehicles is seen as evidence of restored consumer confidence following the improvement in the economy.

However, the number of vehicles imported last year is still lower than the 2011 figures, when 54,600 autos valued at over $1 billion were imported.

Meanwhile, the sales of domestically assembled cars in Viet Nam rose 19 per cent in 2013, the Viet Nam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) said last Saturday.

As many as 110,519 vehicles were sold in 2013. The sales of sport-utility vehicles (SUV) and multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) registered the highest growth rate of 39 per cent, followed by the passenger car and commercial vehicle segments, which saw growth rates of 28.7 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.

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