Automakers in Vietnam announced that they will keep the car selling price unchanged although dealers of imported vehicles are lowering prices after the tax cut.
This is regarded as a blow to Vietnamese customers’ expectation of a lower car price after the import tax cut on the four-wheeler.
Gan Kok Seng, deputy general director of Honda Vietnam, said the tax cut has direct impacts on the price of brand new cars and imported ones but not affecting the production costs of locally made cars.
Toyota Vietnam, Ford Vietnam and Lifan also revealed no plans of lowering the selling price at this moment.
Michael Pease, general director of Ford Vietnam, said the tax reduction will lead to the price fall in some models but they are not the rivals of domestically made vehicles.
Locally assembled cars will drop in price only when the luxury tax decreases or the market size is much bigger, he pointed out.
With the envisioned increasing presence of imported vehicles after tax fall, the market size will be narrower and the price reduction in local vehicles is impossible, he explained.
According to experts, the short supply is even making the car price higher at the moment. A common car buyer has to wait several months to see the delivery of his car because the orders for car deliveries are sufficient for the production from now until the year’s end.
Recently, Euro Auto and Hyundai Motor Vietnam have reduced the selling prices of their luxury cars by 1.5-5.5 per cent.
However, most customers are displeased with such a low rebate as the tax fell from 80 per cent to 70 per cent.
Huynh Du An, Director of Euro Auto, the distributor of BMW cars, said that the decrease is sound over the unfavorable exchange rate.
Deputy Minister of Finance Truong Chi Trung forecast that the price fall in imported segment will consequently lead to the decrease in locally made line-ups.
According to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA), sales by 16 leading carmakers rose 82 per cent on year to 34,998 in the first seven months this year.
Meanwhile, dealers imported around 10,000 automobiles valued US$193 million in the seven months, up 34 per cent and 55 per cent on year, respectively. (VnEconomy, VietNamNet)
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