Vietnam spent nearly 5.5 billion U.S. dollars into importing completely-built automobiles and components for assembly in the first nine months of this year, posting a year-on-year rise of 50.9 percent.

Specifically, the country imported 108,929 completely-built automobiles worth roughly 2.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 167.8 percent in volume and up 156.9 percent in value, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Wednesday.

In 2018, Vietnam spent nearly 5.4 billion U.S. dollars importing completely-built automobiles and components for assembly, witnessing a year-on-year decline of 2.6 percent. Specifically, the country imported roughly 81,800 completely-built automobiles worth nearly 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, seeing respective decreases of 16 percent and 19.9 percent.

The ministry has recently proposed exempting locally-made auto parts from special consumption tax to foster the domestic automobile industry because the localization rate currently stands at only 10 percent.