According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), Vietnam’s exports in January enjoyed strong growth rates from the post-crisis period, reaching $4.9 billion, up 28.1 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year.

Many goods and commodities saw higher value growth rates, including machinery and equipment (139 per cent), cassava and related products (142 per cent), electrical wires and cables (107 per cent), steel (72 per cent), tea (69 per cent) electronics and components (56 per cent), coal (23.8 per cent) and rice (22.7 per cent).

The largest exports were still familiar items like textiles and apparel ($750 million), footwear ($380 million), electronics and computers ($230 million), wooden products ($270 million), footwear ($270 million) and coffee ($200 million).

“This achievement is thanks to the increase in world prices and demand,” said Nguyen Thanh Hoa, MoIT’s Planning Department deputy director. He said prices of cassava, crude oil and rubber nearly doubled, coal (up 32 per cent), tea (27 per cent) and rice (18 per cent), and so world price hikes brought about $450 million into Vietnam in January.

However, Hoa said the high growth rate could also be attributed to last year’s poor performance. Moreover, last year’s lunar New Year holiday came in January, deterring enterprises from foreign trade activities.
January this year also showed a sharp increase in imports, which reached a turnover of $6.2 billion, up 86.6 per cent compared with last year’s corresponding period.

“This is not a worrying sign,” said Hoa, who said Vietnam in January spent 80-85 per cent of its import turnover on buying materials for domestic production and export procession. Price hikes caused by the world economic recovery also contributed to Vietnam’s import expansion. For example, prices of fertiliser went up 188 per cent, pesticides 175 per cent, steel 86 per cent and oil and gas 47.8 per cent. The MoIT estimated that the price rises led to an increase of $350 million in import turnover in January.

Therefore, concerns over the expansion of imports and the blossoming trade deficit are still being raised. Some experts said that January’s import growth was much higher than the MoIT’s export set target of 5.6 per cent for 2010. Similarly, the trade deficit in January reached $1.3 billion, accounting for 26.5 per cent of the export turnover in January, while the MoIT’s target was less than 20 per cent.
 
Source: VietNamNet/VIR