Thailand
Cambodia: Vehicle registrations have dropped as Covid triggers fall in car sales
Vehicle registrations fell 7 percent in the first half of the year, compared with a year earlier. The drop came as the Coronavirus pandemic weighed on consumer sentiment, putting customers off purchases. Travel restrictions also made it harder to get to registration centres.
Nearly 250,000 vehicles were registered from January through June according to Chhuon Vorn, director-general of the transportation ministry’s General Department of Land Transport.
In Cambodia all vehicles must be registered in accordance with the prescribed law.
To encourage more people to get their paperwork in order, Vorn says the ministry is adding public service centres in some provincial capitals. In Phnom Penh drivers can register their vehicles at the two Aeon Malls, Chip Mong Mall and the ministry’s own centre. In Siem Reap, there is one office at Heritage Walk.
From 1990 to the end of June 2021, the Department of Land Transport registered 6.1 million vehicles, including 5 million motorcycles.
People can also register vehicles through the ministry’s automated online registration system at https://vehicle.mpwt.gov.kh.
That requires the creation of an online account and filling in personal and vehicle information together with attachments of the receipt of import tax, letter from the dealer and the certificate of vehicle inspection, along with a copy of the applicant’s Cambodian ID, residency book or family book of the vehicle owner.
After filling out all information, applicants can print out a bill to pay through WING, or Ly Hour.
The vehicle registration cost is 125,000 riels, plus an additional fee if a person chooses a preferred number plate.
Motorcycles and tricycle registration can also be completed at every motor dealer nationwide, every Provincial Department of Public Works and Transport or at the One Window Service Offices that are located in every district in Phnom Penh and all provinces.
The fee for those vehicle registrations is 40,000 riels. Applicants receive their number plates immediatley.
Car importers say shipments dropped at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. They note falling incomes have curbed luxury car sales. Car imports fell 10 percent last year compared with 2019.
Not all importers are suffering, though. RMA, the exclusive distributor of Ford, Jaguar, Range Rover and John Deere products in the Kingdom, said last week that second quarter profits rose on the back of high-end vehicle sales.
Sales of Fords accounted for nearly 88 percent of total revenue.
The Ford Ranger pickup is Cambodia’s top-selling new vehicle in the country. Consultancy TechSci Research says the domestic market for mid-sized sports utility vehicles will grow to $716 billion by 2023.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50921007/vehicle-registrations-have-dropped-as-covid-triggers-fall-in-car-sales/