Vietnam Aims at Trade Balance in 2010

The Southeast Asian country of Vietnam is making efforts to narrow its trade deficit with a view to reaching a trade balance in 2010, said the Ministry of Trade (MoT).

 

The country’s trade deficit has decreased slightly over the past few years. It had fallen to $4.75 billion from a record $9.86 billion in 2003, indicated the ministry. It is estimated that the trade deficit in 2006 will make up 12 per cent (or $4-4.5 billion) of the country’s total trade revenue.

 

The slow reduction in the trade deficit has mainly resulted from the country’s high economic growth, which still needs to import large amounts of production materials. In addition, the nation has not yet taken full advantages of joining regional trade agreements such as the CEPT/AFTA, resulting in large trade deficits with ASEAN members and other Asian countries, explained the MoT.

 

To realize the trade balance objective in 2010, starting from now the trade sector must accelerate exports to obtain higher export growth than that of imports, emphasized the ministry.

 

In addition, the MoT and concerned ministries and agencies should finalize procedures to help Vietnam to be recognized as the market economy by the European Union (EU), creating favorable conditions for the country to further penetrate into EU markets, especially in the case of trade disputes.

 

The ministry added that, Vietnam now is in the final stage of WTO accession which is also a good chance for the country to expand export markets.

 

Vietnamese enterprises must improve their competitiveness to boost exports, said trade experts, adding that the nation should take full advantage of foreign-invested enterprises’ export potentials as they had fetched $12.64 billion in trade surplus during the 2001-2005 period. Meanwhile, domestic firms suffered a trade deficit of $31.96 billion during the time.

 

Under the MoT’s export development plan for the 2006-2010 period, Vietnam aims to achieve an export growth rate of 18.5 per cent in 2006 and an annual average rate of 17.5 per cent in the 2006-2010 period with a total value of nearly $272 billion.