Viet Nam’s total trade value in the first four months of the year gained a year-on-year increase of 20.1 per cent to US$125.41 billion, according to the General Department of Customs.

Of which, export value reached $61.34 billion, a year-on-year surge of 15.4 per cent, and import value stood at $64.07 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24.9 per cent.

In the first four months of 2017, Viet Nam had a trade deficit of $2.74 billion, or 2.2 per cent of the national total trade value.

Major export products included telephone and telephone parts, textile and garment, footwear, and vehicles and their parts.

During the first four months, export value rose 0.3 per cent to $11.37 billion for telephones and parts; 9.1 per cent to $7.47 billion for textiles and garments; and 9.6 per cent to $4.17 billion for footwear against the same period last year.

Meanwhile, major import products included machinery, equipment, tools and parts, computers, electronic products and parts, fabric, steel, plastic, and materials and sub-materials of the textile, garment and footwear industries.

Machinery, equipment, tools and parts reached $11.32 billion, a year-on-year increase of 38.9 per cent.

The import value also surged 24.7 per cent to $10.45 billion for the group of machinery, equipment, tools and parts; and 45.4 per cent to $3.3 billion for steel products compared with the same period of last year, reported bnews.vn.

Agro exports

The export value of agro-forestry-aquatic products reached $10.8 billion in the first four months of 2017, a year-on-year surge of 9.1 per cent, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said.

Key farm produce contributed $5.8 billion to the export value, up 12 per cent from the same period last year. Some 1.86 million tonnes of rice, worth $834 million, was shipped abroad, down 7.7 per cent in volume and 6.9 per cent in value compared with the same period last year.

The country raked in $1.34 billion from exporting 592,000 tonnes of coffee, representing a decrease of 10.6 per cent in volume but a rise of 19.2 per cent in value year-on-year.

Exports of wood and wooden products brought home $2.4 billion in the four-month period, rising 12.7 per cent over 2016’s figure.

The United States, China and Japan remained Viet Nam’s largest import markets of wood and wooden products.

During the period, Viet Nam also shipped aquatic products worth $2.1 billion abroad, achieving a growth rate of 8.2 per cent year-on-year. Meanwhile, vegetable and fruit exports witnessed a year-on-year hike of 32.6 per cent in export value to $1 billion.

The four largest import markets of these products were China, the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Viet Nam spent $8.52 billion to import agro-forestry-aquatic products from other countries, up 21.4 per cent from last year’s figure. – VNS