Trade deficit hits $6.8b during first 9 months

Viet Nam’s trade deficit in the first nine months of the year reaches US$6.84 billion, equal to 9.7 per cent of the total export turnover, the General Statistics Office (GSO) has reported.

The country earns $70 billion from exports, up 35.4 per cent over the same period last year, while spending $76.9 billion on imports, up 27 per cent.

The deficit is much lower than that of the first half of the year when the rate was equal to 15.7 per cent of the total export earnings.

Director of the GSO Trade Department Le Thi Minh Thuy attributed the positive result to successful implementation of Government’s policies to restrict the import of luxury goods and encourage the use of locally made products.

Thuy said the decrease in imports in the first nine months was also due to a local production slowdown, which reduced the quantity of import materials needed for local production.

“Production is often highly dependent on imported materials,” she said.

She forecast that imports would increase significantly during the remaining months of the year when local production was expected to improve.

During the surveyed period, imports of machines, equipment and materials accounted for 91.2 per cent of the country’s total import value.

Imports of rubber and liquefied petroleum gas saw the highest growth rate of 66 per cent and 62.4 per cent over the same period last year, valued at $739 million and $571 million, respectively.

Imports of chemicals, cloth, and electrical products, computers and parts also reported high growth rates of more than 30 per cent.

The GSO attributed the high rise in exports to global price hikes, which contributed nearly 20 per cent to the country’s export turnover.

Coffee, pepper, rice and cassava benefited the most from higher export prices.

The GSO said coffee fetched nearly $2.2 billion, up 63.9 per cent in the first nine months despite a modest increase of 7 per cent in volume.

With a 15 per cent rise in terms of volume, pepper also contributed $646 million to the total export earnings, up 94 per cent.

The export value of crude oil increased by 52.3 per cent to $5.55 billion though its export volume surged only 4 per cent.

Among 17 export staples, which earned more than $1 billion each in the first nine months, garments and textiles topped the list with $10.5 billion, up 31 per cent. Footwear and seafood followed with $4.76 billion and $4.4 billion, up 30.8 per cent and 26.4 per cent.  - VNS

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