Vietnam Glass Association Seeks Increased Rate Of Import Tax

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

27 November 2008

The Vietnam Glass Association has made a request to the government for an increase in the import tax levied on construction glass obtained from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The glass association - known more colloquially as Vieglass - put forward a suggestion to the country's Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, that the current 5% duty levied on glass imports from the ASEAN member countries be increased to 20% in a bid to stem the high volume of imports entering the country at present.

According to Vieglass, the 5% tax rate on imports has encouraged a major influx of ASEAN-made glass into the Vietnamese market, causing the domestic market to become flooded with cheap foreign imports. As a consequence, production has slowed dramatically.

Vietnamese factories have a capacity for 100 million square metres of glass per year but it is believed that a stockpile of about 30 million square metres of glass has built up in the country. It is hoped that a sizeable increase to the import tax on glass will stem the flow of cheap imports.

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