Last month, we all groaned in collective agony when we discovered that nearly 900 new vehicles are registered in Saigon everyday.
Many of these vehicles were not motorbikes, but cars with 41,774 automobiles hitting the southern metropolis’ streets so far this year. With a paltry domestic production base, the vast majority of these cars were part of the 112,000 imported from China, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, India and Japan by Vietnam in 2015, reports Voice of Vietnam.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), this staggering figure was an 82.8% increase in volume and 91% hike in value on-year for the January-November time period.
Taken together, these vehicles were valued at a whopping US$2.579 billion and the GSO predicts that auto imports could rise even higher due to regional trade agreements and the changing consumer habits of the Vietnamese middle class.
Though registration prices are now climbing instead of the cost of the vehicles themselves – in September, fees hit VND11 million, five times more expensive than before – the continued onslaught of cars suggests this registration hike may not be enough to stem Saigon's deluge of four-wheeled vehicles.
Perhaps some sidewalk trimming and traffic jam denials will do the trick…
[Photo via Tuoi Tre]
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