The unclear future picture of the local economy, which is under debate at the ongoing National Assembly meetings, cannot stop local customers from buying new cars.  

Local car sales in May reached 9,731 vehicles, up 11 percent compared with the previous month and 42 percent compared with same period last year, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA).

Purchasing power of cars is showing strong recovery with the 4th month-on-month rise in a row, said VAMA.

According to VAMA, this really is an encouraging signal for the recovery of the sector over the last year. The rise is the positive response from consumers after the government decided to reduce the registration fee from 10-20 percent to 10-15 percent in April.

"The recovery trend of the industry will be more strongly felt in the future if the local governments across the country decide to impose a registration fee of only 10 percent. If it is true, sales volume is forecast to reach 108,000 instead of 100,000 vehicles as originally predicted", VAMA said.

With the recovery in the last 4 months, total car sales in the local market amounted to 40,145, an increase of 10 percent compared to the same period last year.

Automobile sales in May also found a significant difference between the completely knocked down (CKD) cars, or domestically assembled cars, and completely built units (CBU), or imported vehicles.

Specifically, the amount of CKD vehicles sold last month was at 7,478 units, up 1 percent compared with April. Meanwhile, the sales of CBU vehicles reached 2,253 units, up to 61 percent.

In the context of the market remaining in difficulty, automakers have been continuously launching new products.

Numerous new car models in many segments from top car manufactures, including Mercedes GLK220 CDI, Mercedes A-Class, BMW 3 GT, Honda City, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Elantra and Nissan Sunny, are queuing up to enter the market.

From now until the end of the year, more new models are expected to appear on the market again, especially during the Vietnam Motor Show 2013 exhibition which will be held in October in HCMC.