Trade and Industry Sector Successfully Hits Target

Industrial production, especially in industrial processing and manufacturing, is recovering. In 2013, the industrial index of the industrial sector is expected to increase by 5.6 percent per year over the same period, higher than the same period last year (up 4.8 percent in 2012 compared with the 2011). This proves the high efforts of the Vietnamese businesses of the whole industry. The proportion of the industrial processing and manufacturing sectors has increased from 60.2 percent in 2010 to around 78 percent in 2013.

 

Reviewing the situation of the industrial sector, Mr Vu Huy Hoang, Minister of Industry and Trade of Vietnam, said that the current inventories of the businesses generally have been reduced; the inventory index in the fields of processing and manufacturing is declining.

 

In terms of exports and imports, the size and growth of the importing and exporting products have reached and exceeded the targets. Total goods exports are estimated at about US$132 billion, increasing by 15.3 percent compared to 2012 and surpassing the targeted VND126.1 billion of the plan of the National Assembly. The trade deficit is estimated at about US$500 million, equivalent to 0.38 percent of export turnover and lower than 8 percent of the projected targets. It means that the trade balance in 2013 is basically balanced.

 

"Although the export of the year has faced a lot of challenges such as declining price of exported commodities and collapsed export markets in some areas, with strong efforts and good adaptation, many exported goods have reached high export turnovers and exceeded the targets," said Minister Hoang.

 

Besides, the exports of Vietnam have been introduced to the markets of nearly 200 countries and territories. In addition to the traditional export markets like the US, EU, Japan, and ASEAN countries, the Vietnam's exports to new markets such as Africa, the Middle East, Latin America have proved their competitiveness.

 

For the domestic market, the balance between supply and demand of the essential goods is guaranteed. The supplies and demands fully meet the needs of producers and consumers nationwide, which helps avoid high pricing caused by the scarcity of the commodities. Many trade promotion activities in the country, which are being actively implemented under the slogan "priority for Vietnamese products", have gradually contributed to the change of the consumers' awareness and habits of using Vietnamese products. The domestic market size is continuously growing and the total retail sales of goods and services are estimated to increase by 14 percent compared with 2012.

 

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed that Vietnam's government negotiate and sign many economic and trade agreements with major trading partners having great impacts on the world and participate in bilateral and regional FTAs. Besides, the government should continue to negotiate the TPP and be proactive in protecting the interests of Vietnam in the WTO forum, as well as actively advocate that other partner countries to recognize Vietnam as a market economy. Vietnam also needs to effectively handle the technical barriers of trading partners and actively file lawsuits against imported goods with signs of law violation, trade remedies. Finally, Vietnam should launch a good system to notify the Vietnamese exports at risk of anti-dumping lawsuits.

 

Implementing the plans of 2014 along with the preparation of the forming of the ASEAN Community in late 2015 and signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Free Trade Agreement with the EU, and the agreement with the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and other major partners will offer Vietnam new opportunities and more advantages for development, but pose many challenges and difficulties as well. Therefore, the targets of the industry and trade sector should be set reasonably.

 

In terms of industrial production, Minister Vu Huy Hoang said that in 2014, the industry sector will be sustainable and effective with an increase of the value of the construction and industry of 6.4 percent to 6.6 percent. In terms of the export, the whole industry is about to reach the export growth rate of 10 percent and the trade deficit is maintained at 6 percent or lower than total exports. Total retail sales of goods and services will aim to the domestic growth of about 14 percent.

In the upcoming time, there are many breakthrough solutions of the industrial and trade sectors, such as new exported goods, which contains medium and high volume technology in order to meet the demands of the world markets and identify export strategies compatible with the advantages of Vietnam. The Ministry of Industry and Trade discourages or proposes an appropriate plan to limit the number of products and exports which are low value or not environment-friendly.

 

The solution to promote the export is to focus on highly competitive products with high value-added products or groups of products with a large proportion of turnovers. Besides, the solutions aim to exploit opportunities from trade agreements to intensively integrate with the world market and open markets, which helps Vietnamese businesses increase the sales of Vietnamese exports in major markets and access potential markets.

 

To develop the domestic market, the Ministry of Trade and Industry will strongly promote trade activities to expand the domestic market, especially in the rural areas, highlands and islands. A prompt application of e-commerce will create advanced distribution channels.

 

In terms of the international economic integration, the whole industry is actively promoting all bilateral, regional, and multilateral aspects to further improve the efficiency of the international integration process as well as minimize the challenges posed under the international integration.