Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade is crafting a new strategyto protect the auto industry with tax policies at its centre, Sai Gon TimesWeekly reported.
In adraft, the ministry suggests three solutions to rev up the local auto industry,which has remained sluggish despite a slew of tax incentives.
Thefirst is to make sure there is a large enough domestic market so that policiescan be framed to encourage consumers to choose locally-made vehicles.
Then,technical barriers will be put up and controls tightened to check imports andfight fraud so to create favourable conditions for the growth of the autoindustry.
[MoIT pursues dream of auto industry]
Thesecond solution is to have policies supportive of local automakers, especiallythose with popular products, so that they can compete with imported vehicleswhen import tariffs are slashed to zero next year.
Thethird solution focuses on changing special consumption tax on autos. This taxwill be cut to zero for autos with high local content, with income tax alsobeing revised downward for large auto projects.
If theauto protection strategy is approved, it is expected to give a strongboost to local auto assemblers and encourage them to increase local content,which currently ranges between 7 percent and 10 percent.
Theministry also suggests hiking the taxes on pick-ups to the same levels assedans.-VNA