Capital has $1.2b March trade deficit

Ha Noi’s trade deficit in March was about US$1.2 billion, pushing the figure of the first quarter of this year to $3.5 billion despite attempts to limit imports, announced the city’s Statistics Office.

In March, the office reported, the city’s total import turnover was nearly $2 billion, lifting the total import value in the first three months to nearly $5.58 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.4 per cent.

Cong Xuan Mui, head of the city’s Statistics Office, said about 75 per cent of the imports were raw material and machines.

The import value of products such as spare parts, steel, fertiliser, chemicals and petrol increased by between 3.4 per cent and 23.7 per cent, he said, explaining that many oursourcing industries such as garment and textile, footwear and electronic had to import 60-70 per cent of raw materials to meet the requirements from foreign companies.

In detail, Ha Noi poured more than $2.46 billion to import raw materials in Q1. Of this number, $337 million was spent to buy steel.

More than $1.27 billion was used to import spare parts and machines.

During the first quarter, the export revenue from State-owned companies was $3.65 billion. Followed by private companies and foreign-invested companies with $1.02 billion and $900 million respectively.

In terms of export activities, the capital city in the first quarter earned more than $2 billion from exports, an increase of 28.1 per cent over the same quarter of last year.

The increase is attributed to the high export value of tea, garments and computer components. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam trade, Vietnam trade deficit 2011