Mobile phones press towards top of export list for first time
Mobile phones press towards top of export list for first time
Mobile phones and spare parts are likely to top the list of Vietnamese export items for the first time this year, with their annual export earnings expected to hit US$20 billion.
Viet Nam raked in $13.07 billion from exporting these products in the first nine months of this year and the $20 billion target is within reach, according to experts.
The export value of mobile phones and spare parts increased 21.45 times from 2009 to 2012, or 177.8 per cent each year on average.
In 2009, these products ranked ninth among the country's top 10 export items behind garments, footwear, crude oil, seafood, electronics, computers and spare parts, wood and wood products, rice and rubber.
One year later, they climbed to the fourth place. They placed second behind garments in 2011 and 2012, but jumped to the top in the first nine months of 2013.
Notably, foreign-invested businesses accounted for 99.2 per cent of exports.
The high export growth was attributed to new phone handset manufacturing projects in northern Bac Ninh Province, which made Bac Ninh the country's second-largest hard currency earner this year after HCM City. The two areas earned $15.5 billion and $20 billion respectively.
The European Union was the largest importer of Vietnamese mobile phones and spare parts, consuming $5.4 billion in the past nine months, a year-on-year increase of 71 per cent.
vietnamnews
