Vietnam trade deficit reaches $10.97Bln in Jan-Nov: Vietnam customs

Vietnam’s trade deficit is estimated to have reached $10.97 billion or 17% of the export revenue in the first 11 months of this year, the online newspaper VnEconomy reported on Devember 17, citing the Vietnam Customs.

In January-November, Vietnam exported $64.5 billion worth of goods, up 25% on year and nearly meeting the target of $70 billion for the whole year 2010 while the country spent around $75.5 billion to import goods, up 20.7% according to the statistics from the GSO.

November is the sixth time this year the figure has been brought lower than the target 20% of the export revenue set by the National Assembly.

In November alone, the deficit is expected to have surged to 8-month high of $1.30 billion, slightly increasing from a revised $1.1 million in November after the country exported $6.64 billion worth of goods, up 6.7% on month and spent $7.94 billion to import goods, up 8.7% on month.

The office says the number of exports staples with earnings of more than $1 billion was 16 in November, up 3 against October. The staples have made a significant contribution to total export revenue.

Garments and textile export revenue saw the highest increase was more than $10 billion, up 22% against last year. Footwear earned $4.46 billion; seafood $4.5 billion and crude oil $4.49 billion.

In the import side, the staples saw the highest increase included machines, tools and equipment, fabric, textile material; the office said without any exact figures of import revenue this month.

However, the country is expected to continue measures to restrict the trade deficit as intense exchange-rate volatility and an imbalance in foreign-currency supply and demand, the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) said.

Earlier, GSO estimated that the country’s trade gap stood at VND10.65 billion as export and import revenue rose to VND$64.28 billion and VND74.93 billion respectively.

Vietnam is estimated to incur a trade gap of $12 billion for the whole year 2010, Vu Huy Hoang, Minister of Industry and Trade (MOIT) said at the panel discussion under the on-going 8th session of the 12th National Assembly on November 1. – Stoxplus.com

Tags: Vietnam trade Deficit