The country imported 6,000 completely built units (CBU) worth 113 million USD in the January-February period, an increase of 39.8 percent in volume and 26.1 percent in value year-on-year, the GSO estimated.
The figures reflect the recent influx of retail units of international auto makers such as Lexus, Infiniti and MG Car.
"More and more people choose imported cars instead of locally assembled cars as the quality of the imported ones is much better," said Luong Van Dung, Director of Northern Automobile Company, a prominent auto dealer in Hanoi.
Dung told Vietnam News that the rising number of imported vehicles is evidence of restored consumer confidence following the improvement in the economy.
In 2013 also, there was a marked rise in the imports of CBUs. As many as 34,500 CBUs, valued at 709 million USD, were imported, marking an increase of 25.9 percent in volume and 15.2 percent in value, year-on-year.
However, the number of vehicles imported this year is lower than in 2011, when 54,600 units, valued at over 1 billion USD, were imported.
Imports of vehicles are expected to increase in 2014 after the reduction of the import tax on cars from ASEAN countries to 50 percent, effective from January 1 this year.
The tax cut is in compliance with VietNam's signing of the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA).
While ASEAN countries are not centres of automobile production, there are some large manufacturing giants such as Japan's Toyota and Honda in the region.
Statistics by the Customs Office revealed that 8,826 cars, valued at nearly 150 million USD, were imported from Thailand and Indonesia in the first 11 months of 2013, more than double the imports in the same period in 2012.-VNA
