HANOI, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's total automobile sales in the first 10 months of this year were 220,121 units, seeing a year-on-year decrease of 9 percent, the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association said on Wednesday.
Specifically, sales of passenger cars declined 10 percent to 126,819 units, and those of commercial vehicles such as trucks, pick-ups and vans, dropped 6 percent to 82,270, and those of special-purpose vehicles fell 18 percent to 11,032.
In the 10-month period, the association's members, which dominate the Vietnamese automobile market, sell 204,942 vehicles, down 6 percent. Specifically, they sold 120,633 passenger cars, down 3 percent, 75,457 commercial vehicles, down 7 percent and 8,852 special-purpose vehicles, down 23 percent.
The smaller sales were mainly attributed to wait-and-see attitude of potential buyers who were waiting for lower prices of imported vehicles, local experts said, noting that automobile sales are likely to increase early next year when import taxes on vehicles will be slashed to zero percent in line with the ASEAN Free Trade Area.
