HANOI, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Following its commitments in ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), Vietnam will fully remove import duties levied on cars of ASEAN origin from 2018. Domestic auto firms fear that they will "find it hard to survive" in Vietnamese market, reported local media on Wednesday.
According to a report by Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)'s Department of Heavy Industry, a total of 459,634 autos were put into operation in Vietnam in 2016. Among them, as many as 341,077 units were domestically produced and 118,557 were imported.
Twelve auto assembly and production companies in Vietnam including Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Honda, Chevrolet, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Suzuki, Isuzu, Mercedes-Benz, provide some 70 percent of the national total auto demand, the state-run television VTV quoted the department as saying on Wednesday.
Speaking at a recent meeting held by MoIT, a Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA) representative said the post-2018 competition pressure is very big. The association expressed worry that its members will fail to compete with imported cars, even fail to survive in the market.
Auto manufacturers have to make a new decision on whether to maintain domestic production or withdraw their production sector out of Vietnamese market and just focus on trading activities, said VAMA.
