Vietnam saw a year-on-year increase of 64.5 percent in automobile imports from Thailand in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015, according to Vietnam Customs on Tuesday.
During the period, Thailand was top supplier of autos to Vietnam with around 7,800 units, followed by the Republic of Korea (RoK) with some 3,560 units, while China ranked third in the list with around 2,260 automobiles. Auto imports from RoK and China saw respective decrease of 41 percent and 58 percent year-on-year, local VNEconomy online newspaper quoted Vietnam Customs as saying.
According to local insiders, the sharp increase in Thai auto imports into Vietnam was thanks to the application of preferential import tax offered by the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA).
Specifically, from 2016, intra-ASEAN auto import tax has been reduced from 50 percent to 40 percent, and will stay at 30 percent by 2017 and zero percent by 2018.
In Q1, Vietnam spent 486 million U.S. dollars on importing over 19,700 autos, down 16.8 percent in value and 21.2 percent in volume year-on-year. Earlier in 2015, Vietnam set a record while spending nearly 3.5 billion U.S. dollars on imports of 125,600 autos. Last year, China was the largest auto supplier to Vietnam, followed by the RoK and India.
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