In the first 8 months of this year, the price of imported passenger vehicles increased 14.4% from a year ago and 135.9% from the same period in 2020, reaching a total of $453.1 million.

Even if it's expensive, we will buy it anyway

3 years ago, the average price of a passenger vehicle was $5,308, but now it has reached $9,667. Although the cost of passenger vehicles has increased, it didn’t affect the quantity of imports dropping. In the first 8 months of 2023, the number of imported passenger vehicles fell by 1.7% from a year ago but grew by 29.6% from 3 years ago and reached 46.9 thousand.

From bicycle to Porsche

Furthermore, looking at the diversification of car imports, the number of passenger vehicle imports dropped by 21.7% from a year ago to 13,357. On the contrary, the price of special-purpose vehicles surged by 60.6%. It is the result of the activation of the mining industry.

• More: In addition, both the number and price of bicycle imports increased. Bicycle imports reached 21.8 thousand this year. It indicates that people fed up with city traffic seem to have increased the demand for bicycles. If the road improves, the number of bicyclists will increase. Also, it definitely causes traffic jams to decrease.

So what?

Why is the price of cars increasing, but the number of imports is not decreasing?

• Social status is essential: With urbanization, owning a car has become a status symbol and a measure of one's wealth and status in society. Also, the lack of public transport is a major loophole.
• Loan^3: Therefore, people who need to get a car with a loan, on the other hand, the bubble of lenders continues to grow. In this sense, in the first 7 months of this year, new car loans issued by commercial banks surged by 45.8% compared to a year ago and reached ₮47 billion.

Overall, The number demonstrates that now we need to sort out this problem by developing tax and tariff policies and public transport infrastructure. The method of limiting the cars by even and odd number order seems to increase the number of imported passenger vehicles.