Vietnam imported completely-built automobiles and components for assembly totaling nearly 5.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, seeing a year-on-year drop of 2.6 percent.

Specifically, the country imported roughly 81,800 completely-built automobiles worth nearly 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, posting respective declines of 16 percent and 19.9 percent, according to its Ministry of Industry and Trade on Wednesday.

In December 2018, Vietnam spent 307 million U.S. dollars importing 14,500 automobiles and 270 million U.S. dollars importing components for assembly.

Early last year, few automobiles, especially cars, were imported to Vietnam because traders were not well-prepared to comply with a new governmental decree which requires traders to provide more relevant certificates and to undergo more tests than before, according to local experts.

In 2017, the Southeast Asian nation spent over 5.3 billion U.S. dollars importing 94,000 completely-built automobiles and components for assembly. Meanwhile, its total automobile sales were 272,750 units, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association.