Vietnam's exports rise 6 percent in first four months

Of this, the domestic economic enterprises saw a year-on-year surge of 2.9 percent in export value to 15.11 billion USD in the first four months, while the foreign direct invested firms had a year-on-year growth of 7.3 percent in export value to 37.76 billion USD.GSO experts said this was a result of the positive growth of national exports, in the face of a drop in crude oil exports by 52 percent to 678 million USD in the first four months, due to the strong reduction in world oil prices.Meanwhile, 30 key export products saw a strong increase in export value in the first four months. These included vegetable and fruit with a growth of 43.3 percent to 741 million USD; telephone and its components, up 23.8 percent to 474 million USD; gemstone and precious metals, up by 22.8 percent to 260 million USD; and machine and equipment, up by 15.8 percent 2.86 billion USD, in addition to petrol products, up by 12.6 percent to 259 million USD; and handbags, hats and umbrellas, up by 10.8 percent to 1.36 billion USD.However, some other key export products faced low growth or even reduction in export value such as seafood (up by 3.8 percent), bamboo and rattan (up by 2.6 percent), footwear (up by 4.8 percent), and tea (down by 14.2 percent), in addition to cassava (down by 23.5 percent).The GSO also reported in the first four months of this year, the national import value reduced 1.2 percent year-on-year to 51.4 billion USD, including 20.7 billion USD from domestic enterprises and 30.7 billion USD from FDI enterprises.Therefore, the nation gained a trade surplus of 1.46 billion USD in the first four months of this year.The products which witnessed a big reduction in import value included animal feed (down by 17.7 percent), petrol (33.3 percent), and completely built-up automobiles (23.5 percent).The office said value of imports from China fell strongly to 14.7 billion USD in the first four months, reducing trade deficit with China by 12.7 percent year-on-year to 8.9 billion USD.

(Source: VNA)