Scarcity of duty-free import cars remains despite surpassing harness straps

Recently, it is reported that car manufacturers will be able to import duty-free cars in June 2018, after successfully surpassing the regulations in Decree No. 116. In particular, car brands such as Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi or Suzuki are expected to offer Vietnamese with an opportunity to own cheap imported cars this month. 

Decree No. 116 officially became effective as of January 1st 2018 with many regulations in the process of import and customs clearance for automobiles, which has tightened the standards of import cars in terms of their origin, model, level of emission and traffic safety.

However, at the moment, many car types that were expected to arrive in Vietnam by early March are still nowhere to be seen. 

Up to now, only two big brands like Honda and GM have overcome the provisions of Decree No. 116 to successfully import and deliver the vehicles to clients.

Specifically, four car types including Honda CR-V, Civic, Accord and Jazz cars were imported in early March 2018 and delivered to customers just half a month later. Meanwhile, GM only successfully completed the procedure of Chevrolet Trailblazer and sold it to the market.

The rumour of a massive amount of import cars will come to Vietnam in June is no longer valid and has now been changed to the end of July or beginning of August with the expectation that car prices will be significantly reduced thanks to the tax of zero percent. 

Particularly, over the last few days, rumours said that there will be a sharp discount in car price up to hundred of million of VND by automakers in June. For example, Nissan Teana was sharply discounted to $52,759 as a result of the inability to compete with other strong competitors in the D segment sedan like Toyota Camry or Mazda 6.

However, according to a survey conducted by TheLEADER, this price has been applied since March 2018. Since the devaluation of the market in March 2018 to attract buyers, the price of the Nissan Teana and many other models of the car from the United States has changed.

After successful import and sharp discount on the first duty-free cars batch up to $9,000, Honda slightly increased the price for these models shortly after that. Though a large number of cars have been imported into the country, some other Honda car types are still out of stock or only have a few cars left in stock, especially with Honda CR-V.

Currently, the price of Honda CR-V and CR-V L remains relatively high, ranging from $43,000 to $47,400, while Honda Civic is still tagged at the price of $33,700 to $39,900, depending on the version.

In June, only Chevrolet cars of GM Vietnam are discounted from $662 to $3,532. In particular, Trailblazer 2.8 4x4 AT LTZ model is applied with the highest reduction of $3,532 this month.

For some other companies, such as Toyota, the brand will only apply the promotion of accessories to attract customers to increase sales, while processing the remaining number of car in stock to prepare for incoming duty-free import cars in the future.

Specifically, in the months of June and July, every customer who buys Innova versions G, V and Venturer will receive a free one-year body shell insurance package.

For customers who purchase a small Vios sedan, the gift will be a body shell insurance package or an accessory package that includes a DVD player and a retractable camera.

However, from previous experience, it can be seen that when the number of imported cars is not as high as the demand, perhaps customers still have no chance to enjoy the favourable price level as expected, especially for top selling models such as Toyota Fortuner or Ford Ranger.