VN trade defict with Asean nations grow

It climbed to $4.5 billion in the first nine months of this year.
The deficit with Thailand alone during this period was $3.3 billion. It was $1.4 billion with Malaysia and $1.8 billion with Singapore.
Analysts attributed Vietnam’s increasing trade deficit to the free trade agreements it has signed.
For instance, the import of automobiles from Thailand increased consistently in the last seven months, as 18,837 units worth more than $343 million were shipped to the country, making Thailand Vietnam’s leading auto exporter.
Preferential import tariffs under Vietnam’s Asean Trade in Goods Agreement commitments caused the sharp increase in car imports from Thailand.
Under the agreement, the import tax on autos from Asean members – Myanmar, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Indonesia, Cambodia and Brunei besides Vietnam – will fall from 50 per cent to 40 per cent by 2016, to 30 per cent by 2017 and zero by 2018.
Thailand was followed by South Korea, which shipped 3,560 cars to Vietnam, and China with 2,260 units. 
As for South Korea, besides a trade deal with Asean, the Vietnam-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, which took effect last December, has also helped boost its exports to Vietnam, especially of machinery and equipment and raw materials, by causing import tariffs to be cut sharply, even to zero in some cases, with immediate effect.
Another reason for the big trade deficit is the proliferation of major foreign-invested projects, especially by Chinese companies in the country.
Vietnam’s imports comprise three main categories – capital goods, mainly machinery and equipment (accounting for 30 per cent of imports), intermediate goods (60 per cent) and consumer goods (10 per cent).