Vietnam is seeking to gain the export turnover of $58.6 billion in 2008, an on year increase of 22 per cent, local media said. The target will be on the top of Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai's agenda with the Ministry of Industry and Trade recently.
Vietnam's export is forecast to witness a boom in both volume and value next year, the second year of being the country's WTO membership.
The prediction was built on the positive growth in 2007 with the whole year's export turnover of $48 billion, up 20.5 per cent on year.
The World Bank commented that the world's import market will present a high increase in 2008, at 6.7 per cent on average, including Vietnam's main and traditional import markets such as the EU, Japan, China, and other developed markets in Asia.
Vietnam also expects to get access to new markets and a lower export tariff to increase its volume of exports nest year.
Despite the high growth, Vietnam's export scale is said to be still modest as compared to regional nations, said deputy minister of industry and trade Bui Xuan Khu. The country's per capita export turnover is poorly $473 against those of Singapore ($60,000), Malaysia ($5,890), Thailand ($1,860) and the Philippine ($546).
The biggest challenge facing the country's export sector currently is lack of materials for main export items and degradation of infrastructure system, Khu said.
Therefore, one of four measures to develop the export sector in 2008 is to focus on export items using domestic materials such as handicraft products, rubber, processing foods, and software services.
Other measures include raising the quality and volume of export goods, particularly agricultural and seafood exports, investing equipment and technologies for key exports such as footwear, woodwork, rice, coffee, electronics and computer spares, and adjusting export-related regulations to expand the market. (Saigon Liberation)
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