HANOI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam imported completely-built automobiles and components for assembly totaling over 4.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of this year, seeing a year-on-year decrease of 4 percent.

Specifically, the country imported roughly 51,300 completely-built automobiles worth nearly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, posting respective drops of 33.8 percent and 32.1 percent, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Wednesday.

In October alone, Vietnam spent 233 million U.S. dollars importing 11,000 automobiles.

Early this year, few automobiles, especially cars, were imported to Vietnam because traders were not well-prepared to comply with a new governmental decree which requires traders to provide more relevant certificates and to undergo more tests than before, according to local experts.

Last year, Vietnam spent over 5.3 billion U.S. dollars importing 94,000 completely-built automobiles and components for assembly. Meanwhile, its total automobile sales were 272,750 units, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Total vehicle sales in Vietnam will increase to over 284,400 units this year, global research company BMI Research forecast recently.

Vietnam imported 528,200 completely-built automobiles totaling nearly 11.7 billion U.S. dollars in the 2011-2017 period, including 236,520 under-nine-seat cars worth roughly 3.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs. Vietnam imported cars mainly from India, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea.