Vietnam spent 74 million U.S. dollars importing automobiles, components and spare parts in the first two months of this year, a year-on-year drop of 6.7 percent, according to the country's General Statistics Office on Friday.

From January and February, Vietnam imported 1,400 completely- built automobiles worth 28 million dollars, seeing respective declines of 9 percent and 2.6 percent. Meanwhile, it spent 121 million dollars importing motorbikes, components and spare parts, up 57.2 percent.

The country currently houses 13 automobile joint ventures between foreign firms and local ones with total registered capital of nearly 700 million dollars and combined annual capacity of 173, 000 units. Besides, it has dozens of local enterprises specializing in producing automobile parts and assembling simple vehicles.

Early last year, Vietnam with a population of more than 83 million had some 700,000 private-owned cars compared with 17 million motorbikes, according to statistics from the country's Transport Ministry.

Source: Xinhua