Vietnam estimates to earn US$5.565 billion from export in the first two months of this year, posting an on-year rise of 28.3 per cent, while import spending in the same period is expected at US$5.4 billion, up 4.2 per cent on-year, according to the government’s General Statistics Office.
In February alone, it is selling goods worth US$2.5 billion and buying US$2.8 billion.
Among the country’s export staples in the January-February period, crude oil will continue to be the top forex earner with total expected shipment of 2.798 million tons worth US$1.342 billion, down 6.9 per cent in volume but up 32.2 per cent in value against the same period last year.
The next most important commodities are garments and textiles, footwear, and seafood, which are estimated to rake in US$867 million, US$582 million and US$329 million with respective on-year growth of 45.4 per cent, 30.9 per cent and 3.3 per cent.
Textile and garment exports recovered dramatically since the New Year thanks to a revamp of the quota allocation system. Exports in the two months, mainly to the US, EU, and Japan, were worth US$867 million, up a whopping 45 per cent from the same period last year.
Although the leather footwear sector has recently been affected by the anti-dumping lawsuit lodged by the EU, it notched up US$582 million from exports, a year-on-year increase of 30.9 per cent.
Besides, wooden products, PCs and electronics, coffee, rice and coal are also set to post total export value of more than US$100 million each last month.
Rice exports edged up less than 3 per cent to 300,000 tons, fetching US$157 million, helping Vietnam remain the world’s second largest rice exporter after Thailand.
Meanwhile, products that will post the highest growth rates in the month include rubber (up 83 per cent with a record value of US$156 million thanks to increased demand from China), instant noodles (up 61 per cent), textile and garment (up 45 per cent) and gemstones and precious metals (up 40 per cent).
Among a total of 25 listed export staples (compared to 23 last year), three commodities will record a fall in export earnings in January, including peanut (down 52.1 per cent), tea (down 11.3 per cent) and cashew nut (down 7.6 per cent).
Meanwhile, Vietnam continues spending the most on the import of machinery and equipment (US$773 million, down 8.1 per cent), fuels (US$760 million, up 19.7 per cent) and materials for local production such as cloth (US$356 million, up 54 per cent), steel and iron (US$286 million, down 35.2 per cent).
Vietnam is planning to increase export earnings by 16.4 per cent to US$37.2 billion in 2005, while accepting to spending more on equipment and machinery and materials to serve local production.
(Source: GSO)
Vietnamese
