Vietnam is set to apply various measures to control and limit the number of motorbikes following the transport management and development plan by 2020 with view to 2030.
According to the plan, motorbikes will only be used in rural areas where public transport systems are underdeveloped and cars will also be limited. It is hoped that the plan will limit the number of vehicles to 36 million motorbikes and 3.5 million four-wheelers by 2020.
According to the Ministry of Transport, as of July 2012, the total of registered motor vehicles was topped 37 million. However this figure does not exclude extremely old vehicles.
Previously, the ministry proposed scrapping vehicles that are over eight years or older or have run over 100,000 km, however, this was ditched because of strong opposition.
An officer from the Ministry of Transport said they would work on new solutions in order to control Vietnam's traffic. Some alternative solutions include limiting the number of registered vehicles, raising fees or temporarily halting motorbike registration.
Meanwhile, other suggestions include applying emission standards and emission fees. This would discourage people from using old vehicles.
Upon receiving the news, many enterprises have complained about the constant tweaking of policies and expressed concern about the effect on their businesses.
Even though the economy had faced difficulties in 2012, motorbike sales in Vietnam remained high and are forecast to continue growing. That's why many companies have decided to increase their assembly capacity to five million units per year.
With the new plan, motorbike manufacturers and spare part factories will also face difficulties.
At the same time, car companies said they may stop assembling altogether and instead start to import fully-assembled cars.
