Car sales in Vietnam currently total around 307,000 units a year according to Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, a number the ministry wants to see grow to about 1 million a year by 2030, Tuoi Tre has reported. These targets have been outlined in a draft Prime Minister’s decision which, more broadly, is designed to guide the development of Vietnam’s automobile industry between now and 2045.
Of note, most of Vietnam’s bigger cities are cramped with narrow streets and very little room for cars.
Not only are the streets struggling to fit all the new four-wheel vehicles, but they also lack parking space. The answer to this has been to park cars on sidewalks and in empty lots but these spaces are limited and have other purposes.
That is to say, Vietnam’s cities are already straining to accommodate the rise in car ownership and the penetration rate is only around 5 percent. If the country is to reach car sales of 1 million units a year, there will need to be some fairly big investments in infrastructure. This is not addressed in the aforementioned Tuoi Tre article.
See also: Vietnam’s Automotive Industry: Foreign Investor’s Guide 2024