Description

There are currently over 5.7 million motorized vehicles, in which, 2.5 million motorbikes and 730,000 cars are old or outdated (registered before 2000). These vehicles, particularly those which poorly maintained, often generate polluting emissions. 

Hà Nội plans a pilot program (plan No. 172/KH-UBND) to promote owners of old vehicles to maintain their vehicles or buy new ones to improve air quality. The pilot program will be implemented as follows: the city will cooperate with the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM), mainly from manufacturers of Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Piaggio, and SYM, to establish 8 sites of emission test and 30 sites for receiving old discarded vehicles. The program will be piloted in 6 districts of Hoàn Kiếm, Cầu Giấy, Đống Đa, Hai Bà Trưng, Thanh Xuân, Hà Đông. The test sites will provide air emission tests for free. Each vehicle can get financial support of up to 4 million VNĐ if the owner wants to buy a new vehicle. About 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles will be supported.

Experts, however, recommend that Hà Nội should assess carefully the socio-economy impacts and have an implementation pathway. Otherwise, it might negatively affect the livelihood of vehicle owners, if the city wants to withdraw all outdated vehicles in a short time.  

Sources & further information: “Capital city to put 5,000 old vehicles through emissions test by 2022” at https://vietnamnews.vn, “Hà Nội thu hồi xe cũ đổi xe mới: Cần cơ chế khuyến khích người dân” at https://kinhtedothi.vn, and “Hà Nội tiến hành đo khí thải xe gắn máy từ tháng 9/2021” at https://tienphong.vn, accessed on 4 August 2021.