Exports will hit US$ 200 billion

	Vietnam exports over US$16 billion goods to US
	Vietnam to promote high quality rice to boost export revenues
	Vietnamese firms urged to find ways to step up EU exports

Exports are expected to reach US $ 200 billion, up 13%. Photo: Phan Thu

Increasing in price and volume

According to a report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in the first 6 months of 2017, export turnover reached US $ 97.7 billion, an increase of 18.8%.

Mr. Tran Thanh Hai, the Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that this was a high increase compared to the same period of 2016 (up 5.9%) due to the increase in price (mainly in fuel and agricultural products) and volume (mineral and manufacturing and processing groups) and highly increased over the months.

Exports increased in all commodity groups, fuel and minerals are the highest increase with a growth rate of 40.2%, an export turnover of US$ 2.29 billion.

Specifically, coal increased 326%, crude oil increased 36.2%, petroleum products increased 31.2%. The main reason due to the high increase in export prices, especially coal which has a breakthrough in exported volume.

The industrial processing commodity group achieved an impressive growth of 19.1%, with a turnover of US$78.56 billion such as: Computers, electronic products and components up 45.8%, reaching US$ 11.56 billion, mobile phones of all kind and accessories up 14.9%, reaching US $ 19.5% billion; Footwear up 12.2 % reaching US$ 7 billion; Textiles and Garments up 8.5% reaching US $ 11.75 billion.

Although the commodity groups of agriculture, forestry, and fishery products had the lowest growth rate, they are also the typical items of Vietnam with an export turnover of US$ 12.1 billion, up 16.7%. Vegetables and fruits are still on the top with a growth of 43.5%, reaching over US $ 1 billion.

However, according to Mr.Do Thang Hai, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Vietnam's exports still mainly depend on FDI enterprises, accounting for 72.1% and having a much higher growth than domestic enterprises, an increase of 20.4%. "This is a notable issue and the FDI sector still plays an important role" Mr. Do Hai Hai noted.

Exceeding the target

Giving a bright outlook for the last months of the year, Mr. Do Thang Hai said that exports would highly increase for some industrial commodities with large export turnover and start the growth cycle such as textiles and garments, footwear and wooden products. Therefore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade forecasted that export turnover in 2017 would reach about US$ 200 billion, an increase of over 13% compared to the same period and exceed the target.

Meanwhile, the import turnover will gradually decrease in the last months of the year because most equipment has been largely imported since the first months of the year due to the disbursement of a series of projects.

Hence, import turnover in 2017 is estimated at US$ 205 billion, an increase of over 17% compared to the same period. Therefore, the trade deficit is estimated at about US$ 5billion, equal to 2.5% of export turnover, lower than the target assigned by the National Assembly.

In order to achieve this target, Mr. Hai said, we need to implement many solutions, in which removing obstacles for domestic production and projects of production for export and creating sources for exports.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade also has innovated trade promotion toward not only depending on the State budget but also speeding up socialization and encouraging other trade promotion organizations to participate.

Agriculture sector targets US$33 billion from exports in 2017 The agriculture sector will have to make greater efforts to fulfil three major targets set for this ...

Especially in trade protection, the solutions which were previously used in Vietnam such as licenses, quotas are not currently used. Therefore, the use of trade protection tools such as the application of safeguard measures or anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures needs to be strengthened to apply appropriately and ensure international commitments.

"In the current protectionist trend, many countries are enhancing technical barriers to all Vietnamese products. Support for domestic enterprises to overcome technical barriers, meet standards or conformity assessment is also important to help increase exports." Mr. Tran Thanh Hai said.