Thai and Indonesian auto suppliers overwhelm Vietnamese market

As many as 55,634 vehicles completely built in Thailand were shipped to Vietnam in 2018, with a total value of over US$1 billion.

Online newspaper Vietnamplus quoted newly-released statistics by the General Department of Vietnam Customs as showing Thailand was the largest source of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles in 2018. In total, Thailand exported 55,634 units with a total value of over US$1 billion. This was followed by Indonesia with 17,146 CBU vehicles, worth more than US$269 million.

Other major CBU providers included Japan (with over 2,000 units), China (1,565 units), the United States (895 units), and the Republic of Korea (632 units).

Last year, Vietnam purchased 81,609 completely built-up (CBU) vehicles with a total value of more than US$1.8 billion.

These figures fell by 16.1% in volume and 19.8% in value respectively against the previous year.

The sharp drop in automobile imports was partly attributed to the fact that many importers had faced various challenges in meeting import-related regulations as outlined by the Government’s Decree No.116/2017/ND-CP.

Vietnam Customs reported that the number of CBUs sent to Vietnam reached only 12,380 during the first half of 2018, plummeting by 75.7% on-year.

This plunge was caused by a large number of automobile importers in Vietnam failing to provide Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) certification for CBUs as stipulated by Decree No.116.

CBU imports recovered during the second half of 2018 as Thailand and Indonesia gave the green light to issuing VTA certifications for vehicles shipped to the Vietnamese market.