Gradually reducing fuel and mineral exports
The Ministry of Trade has developed an export development plan for the 2006-2010 period. Under the plan, Vietnam aims to achieve export growth rate of 18.5 percent in 2006 and annual average rate of 17.5 percent in the 2006-2010 period. Increasing investment in industrial product groups to expand production and exploit new products and markets and renewed processing technology to improve added value of agricultural products are considered two important factors in boosting export growth based on three assumptions as follows:

First, export growth rate of materials and fuels will likely drop due to declining exports of crude oil and coal compared to the targets set for the next few years, especially after the first oil refinery plant is put into operation in 2009, using domestic crude oil.

Second, export growth rate of agriculture, forestry and seafood products will likely increase slowly due to certain limits in cultivation and breeding capacities.

Third, export growth rate of industrial and handicraft products will likely rise rapidly as there are many opportunities for expanding the production scale, develop new markets and products of high added value.

There will be specific plans for each export group to develop. The export proportion of the agricultural and forestry product group will gradually drop from 19.1 percent in 2006 to 13.7 percent in 2010. The fuel and minerals group with two major products of crude oil and coal will fall sharply from 21 percent in 2006 to 9.6 percent in 2010. Industrial and handicrafts products will increase from 45.9 percent in 2006 to 54.1 percent in 2010. The group of potential export products will include garments and textiles, footwear, electronics, computer components, electronic home utensils, plastics, woodwork, handicrafts, electric wires and cables, bicycles and bicycle spare parts.

Accelerating service sector’s growth rate
The service sector aims to achieve average annual growth of 16.3 percent and export turnover of US$12 billion by 2010, focusing on some strong areas such as insurance (29.3 percent), post and telecommunication (24.5 percent), finance (22.4 percent) and marine transport (21.5 percent).
It is projected that by 2020, tourism will earn US$3.2 billion in export turnover, labour export (US$3 billion), marine transport (US$1.1 billion) and aviation transport (US$950 million).
However, Vietnam has not yet effectively tapped potential services such as marine transport, aviation, finance, banking and insurance. Therefore, it is essential to build a long-term investment strategy for these sectors.

In the 2006-2010 period, the country needs to boost exports in the areas of tourism, labour export and software manufacturing. According to the Vietnam Software Association, over the past three years, the software manufacturing sector has recorded an average growth rate of 30-45 percent and the rate will continue to rise in the future and will likely to hit US$300-400 million in export turnover by 2010.

Source: VOV news