Vietnam, a new WTO member, is forecast to face a big trade deficit of US$9 billion this year, said the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).
The country is estimated to rake in US$48 billion from goods export this year while import spending is predicted to hit US$57 billion, said the ministry.
The ministry makes the estimation based on the country’s import-export situation in the past eight months of this year.
At an irregular government meeting, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked ministries to make greater efforts to achieve the set GDP growth rate of 8.5 per cent, and take measures to narrow the trade gap by boosting exports.
Vietnam faced a trade deficit of $6.4 billion in the January-August, up 132.6 per cent on-year due to massive importation of equipment and machineries and production materials that are experiencing soaring price hikes, said the ministry.
The country is estimated to obtain an on-year export growth of 19.3 per cent to reach $32.21 billion in the first eight months this year.
In Jan-Aug eight items of Vietnam posted revenue of over $1 billion each, including four good categories with earned revenue of over $2 billion each, namely crude with total export volume of 9.98 million metric tons valued at $5.09 billion, down 9.9 per cent and 11.8 per cent, respectively, apparel with a value of $5.08 billion, up 29.6 per cent on-year, footwear $2.72 billion, up 14.3 per cent, seafood products $2.36 billion, up 14.1 per cent, woodwork $1.49 billion, up 23.3 per cent, coffee $1.41 billion, up 90.7 per cent, and electronic and computer parts $1.3 billion, up 24.6 per cent.
The country is forecast to spend $37.63 billion on goods import during the period, up 29.9 per cent on-year.
Main imports are machinery and equipment, fuels, steel and iron, cloth, electronic and computer parts, plastics and apparel accessories, mostly from China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Initially, the ministry estimated Vietnam’s exports will hit $47.5 billion this year, up 20 per cent on-year and the country’s import spending at $52.2 billion, up 17.5 per cent. (Pioneer Online, Vietnam Panorama)
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