Garment products being made at TNG Song Cong Company in Thai Nguyen Province. The northern province has ranked third in terms of export value for the first five months of this year, two years in a row. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Nguyen

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Thai Nguyen has ranked third in terms of export value for the first five months of this year, according to the General Department of Customs.

For the second consecutive year, the northern mountainous province has surpassed the Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces, with US$7.43 billion in export value for the given period.

The first and second places were held by HCM City, with a total export value of $11.97 billion, and Bac Ninh, with a total export value of $9.47 billion.

The department said, for many years until 2015, the provinces of Binh Duong and Dong Nai had stood in third place.

In the first five months of this year, Thai Nguyen had the highest growth rate in export value nationwide, pegged at $1.09 billion against the same period last year, to reach a total of $7.43 billion. Meanwhile, the export value rose by $5 million in HCM City to reach $11.97 billion and by $867 million in Bac Ninh to reach $9.47 billion. Binh Duong Province saw its export value to reduce by $223 million in the first five months of this year.

The department said Samsung Electronics Viet Nam Thai Nguyen Ltd Company (SEVT), Samsung's first project in Thai Nguyen Province, had promoted the growth of the province's export value since the start of its operations in 2014, boosting annual export value from millions to billions of US dollars.

In 2015, Thai Nguyen's export value reached $15.97 billion, surpassing Dong Nai Province in fourth place.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade's Trade Promotion Agency said Thai Nguyen was expected to gain $27 billion in total export value in 2020 and an average growth rate in export value of 9 per cent per year.

To reach the target, the northern province will have to adopt a strategy of developing key export products, including electronic and high-tech products and dried tea products.

The province will focus on planning regions for the growth of tea plantations, lending support to enterprises that wish to invest in new technology and building geographic indicators for tea-growing areas to ensure a tea export volume of 10,000 tonnes by 2020.

In addition, the province will promote exports of textiles and garments by creating favourable conditions for enterprises to expand production and invest in new technology to improve the quality of their products, thus reducing production costs and expanding markets in the United States and the European Union.

Thai Nguyen's Industry and Trade Department said the province would continue to serve the traditional markets, including the United States, the European Union, Taiwan, Japan and Russia, and would also seek partners to export to new markets in the Americas, especially Latin American countries; Africa; the Middle East; and West Asia. — VNS