Vietnam’s economy, January 2008

1. Outputs of agriculture, forestry and fishery

a. Agriculture: As of 15/1/2008, the country had 1894.1 thousand ha of winter-spring rice cultivated, equaling 101.5% of same period last year. Provinces in the North had 108.6 thousand ha under cultivation, equaling 102%, of which the Red River Delta only gained 60% of same period last year. Provinces in the South had 1,785.5 thousand ha under rice sowing, equaling 101.5%, of which the Mekong River Delta achieved 1,485.2 thousand ha, equaling 99.5%; the cultivated rice has been developing well. As of mid January, provinces in the North harvested 70% of winter-crops. Generally, the yield was low due to the affect of heavy rain and storms at the end of 2007 therefore the productivity decreased, of which maize fell by 5%; vegetables and bean by 10%; peanut by 10%; soy-bean by 20%.

Animal husbandry in this month was generally stable. In order to ensure the foodstuff sources for lunar Tet, localities concentrated on breeding poultries and cattle, strengthening the work of preventing deseases and quarantine.

b. Forestry: In this month, the forestry focused mainly on the task of protecting and caring the current forest areas, taking over the newly planted areas and preparing soils and seeds for forestation in 2008. As estimated, in January 2008, wood production gained 194.2 thousand m³, increasing by 0.6% against same period last year. The work of forest protection was done well, there was no case of foresrt fire in the month in spite of dry weather.

Fishery: Production of fishery for January 2008 was estimated at 331.1 thousand tons, increasing by 11.8% against same period last year, of which fish gained 251.8 thousand tons, increasing by 14.6%, shrimp was 28.3 thousand tons, rising by 5.5%. The aquaculture was in the time of reaping shrimp and catfish so the yield achieved well, estimated at 139.1 thousand tons, rising by 28.3% against same period last year. The caught products was estimated achieving 192 thousand tons, rising by 2.4% of which offshore catching  gained 178.1 thousand tons, rising by 2.7%.

2. Industrial output

The industrial production value in January was estimated raising by 18.2%, of which the state sector rose by 11.8% (enterprises under central management rose by 16.2%, and under local management by 1.2%); the non-state sector by 21.5%; the FDI sector by 18.9% (petroleum  and gas fell by 3.2%, others rose by 22.1%). As compared with last month, industrial production value in January 2008 fell by 5.4%.

3. Investment

Capital investments under the state budget in January 2008 were achieving VND 6.6 trillion, accounting for 6.7% of the whole year plan. Central investment was VND 2 trillion, equaling 6.1%; local investments achieved VND 4.6 trillion, equaling 7%. Generally, the rate of realized capital investment in this month achieved lower than the yearly plan mainly due to realizing the volume of projects of previous year moved to this year.

Foreign direct investment: For 20 beginning days of January, there have been 35 granted license projects with a total capital registered USD 1.65 billion, increasing by 21% in number of projects and 5.4 times as much as the capital registered against same period last year because of 2 huge projects with total capital registered nearly USD 1.6 billion. If 65 million USD funding additionally for 10 projects of the previous years were added, the total funds gained 1.72 billion USD.

4. Trade, prices and services

a. Total retail sales of consumer goods and services

Business activity in this month is quite animated all over the country. Provinces concentrated on mobilizing commodity source to meet the people’s high consumser demand on Tet holidays. Total retail sales of consumer goods and services  in January were estimated at 75.9 trillion VND, rising by27.4% against same period last year, of which the trade gained 62.6 trillion VND, accounting for 82.4% and rising by 26.6%; hotel and restaurant: 8.7 trillion VND, for 11.4% and by 31.6%; services: 3.7 trillion VND, for 5% and by 29.9% respectively. Particularly Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh city achieved 24.4 trillion VND, accounting for 32.1% of the total and rising by 27.8%.

b. Consumer prices

Consumer prices in this month rose by 2.38% against last month, of which, restaurant and catering services grew at highest rate of 3.76%; food rose by 3.35% due to the increase in prices of rice and rice export; foodstuff by 3.75% due to the affect of deseases that resulted in insufficient supply to demand on Tet holidays (animal meat by 8.98%; poultry meat by 4.05%); housing and construction materials by 2.88%; drinks and cigarettes by 1.77%; clothings, hats and footwears by 1.4%; other commodities increased slighly from 0.06% to 0.85%.

World gold prices have continuously increased for last 3 months that affected on domestic gold prices. Gold prices in January rose by 5.07% over last month and by 35.33% against same period last year. USD prices continuously decreased by 0.26% over last month and by 0.17% over same period last year.

c. Commodity export and import

Total trade turnovers in 01/2008 were estimated at USD 10 billion, of which exports gained 4.5 billion USD, increasing by 19.7% over same period last year; imports achieved 5.5 billion USD and by 27%. Trade deficit was 1 billion USD, higher than the rate of 100 million USD of same period last year and equaling 22.2% of export value.

d. International visitors to Viet Nam in 01/2008 were estimated at 420 thousand persons, rising by 13.8% over 01/2007. Of which, visistors for tourism were 258.8 thousand, rising by 9.7%; for business: 78.9 thousand, by 57.6%; for visiting relatives: 55.7 thousand, by 6.1%.

e. Transport

Transport activity in this month was quite animated. The transport in almost localities in the country had plans to carry people during Tet holidays. Passenger carriage in 01/2008 was estimated at 133 million persons and 5569.2 million passengers.kilometers, increasing by 11.5% in passengers carried and by 11.9% in passengers.kilometers over same period last year.

Tags: Vietnam economic 2008, Vietnam economic statistics, Vietnam's economy situation