Luxuries flood Vietnam despite price woes

Luxuries like fine cosmetics, high-end cell phones, super cars and others now flood Ho Chi Minh City market amidst concerns over rising prices and government measures to reduce Vietnam’s trade deficit.
It is very easy at the moment to find in large numbers cosmetic products imported from the United States, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and others which are all on display at high-end shopping malls like Vincom, Parkson, Diamond Plaza, and Zen Plaza.
Imports like foot lotions, eye and lip make-up removers, shampoos, and shower creams are growing more and more familiar with cosmetics distributors.
Those items are widely sold in the city and northern provinces as well, a HCMC-based cosmetics dealer told Tuoi Tre.
Hien, sales supervisor of a cosmetics importer, said his company imports around 7 containers of cosmetics worth VND14 billion (US$677,500) each month from Australia, Malaysia, and the US.
Customs authorities at Saigon Port – Zone 1 revealed 2.79 million items of cosmetics worth roughly $3.42 million were imported via Cat Lai port between January 1 and March 10, a 36.1 percent rise in volume and 54.8 percent surge in value over the same period last year.
Meanwhile, barriers like a shortage of dollar supplies, high interest rates, and customs formalities cannot prevent a large number of cell phones from continually flowing into the country.
An importer said it monthly imports around 5,000 cell phones from various countries.
Consumers have gradually switched from cheap and low-end cell phones popular some years ago to middle- and high-end devices now, Nguyen Quoc Bao, chairman and CEO of the import company, remarked.
Over 266,000 mobile phones, a two-fold increase, were cleared through customs in the first 2 months of this year, according to statistics released by customs authorities.
The Southeast Asian nation imported 10,600 cars costing $179 million within the first two months of this year, including high-class brands like Maybach, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Lexus, Bentley, Porsche, and Ferrari, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam.
A customs official in the city said it is very hard to limit the import of luxuries since Vietnam has committed itself to step by step cutting import taxes on those products this year.
For instance, the maximum tariff on cosmetic imports has gone down to 28 percent from 31 percent last year. The rate on cell phones has similarly fallen to 8 percent from a previous 10 percent.
Vietnam previously cut tax on auto imports by 1-6 percent in January.
Its trade deficit last year reached $12.4 billion and the country has projected a $14.2 billion figure for this year.
Import of products that are considered luxuries has almost topped $1.1 billion in value in the first two months, a year-on-year 24.8 percent rise, the Ministry of Industry and Finance said.

Euro Auto, a BMW car importer, said they sold over 150 BMWs at VND1.15-1.44 billion ($55,600-69,700) each in the final three months of last year.
It is reported that no less than 31 Rolls-Royce’s costing $400,000 before tax each are now driven in Vietnam.

source: tuoitrenews

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