Tight rein held on trade deficit
Tight rein held on trade deficit
The trade deficit in the first half of the year was at US$685 million, a 10 per cent rise over the same period last year, reported the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Friday.
Director of the GSO's Trade Department Le Thi Minh Thuy said the low trade deficit was due to high steady growth in exports along with declining growth in imports.
During the first six months import value saw a year-on-year increase of 6.9 per cent to $53.812 billion, while export value surged 22.2 per cent to $53.127 billion, said Thuy.
The foreign direct investment (FDI) sector gained the highest export value at $32.65 billion, seeing an increase of 37.3 per cent compared with the same period last year. Meanwhile, the domestic sector saw a year-on-year rise of 4 per cent to $20.47 billion.
Export value for telephones and components achieved the highest export growth rate of 129 per cent for the first half, to $4.69 billion.
Other products gained high increases in export value of 30 per cent to $685 million for cashew nuts, a 24.4 per cent rise to $2.22 billion for wood and wooden products, a 12.5 per cent increase to $3.83 billion for crude oil and a 8.7 per cent rise to $6.76 billion for textiles and garments.
Meanwhile, the import value for the FDI sector increased by 26.1 per cent to $27.98 billion in the first six months as the sector continued to witness high growth in production and exports. The domestic sector saw a fall in import value of 8.2 per cent to $25.82 billion against the same period of last year.
Many products that rely on imports of materials for production saw falls in import value, by 34.1 per cent to $1.35 billion for autos, 29.9 per cent to $440 million for cotton, 13 per cent to $1.22 billion for animal feed and 10 per cent to $644 million for fertiliser.
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