VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Industry and Trade said there had been 12 groups of products with export revenue exceeding US$1 billion in the first five months of this year and these goods had generated combined outbound sales of over US$43.2 billion.

Workers are at a furniture factory in Binh Duong Province. Wooden products are one of the 12 groups of goods posting January-May export revenue of more than US$1 billion.

Those products included phones and accessories; crude oil; apparel; footwear; computers, electronics and accessories; machines and equipment; seafood; wooden products, transport means and spare parts; coffee; rice; and handbags, wallets, suitcases, hats and umbrellas.

Huynh Dac Thang, deputy head of the ministry’s Planning Department, told an online conference on June 2 that the nation’s export revenue was put at US$12 billion in May, down 8.2% year-on-year. Foreign-invested firms reported a total export value of US$7.45 billion (excluding crude oil), a month-on-month decline of 9.8%.

However, the country’s total export revenue from January to May was put at US$58.5 billion, up 15.4% year-on-year. Domestic enterprises were expected to contribute US$19 billion, up 11.9%, and foreign-invested firms nearly US$36.4 billion (excluding crude oil), up 18.6%.

Industrial and processing goods still made a greater contribution to the country’s total export revenue of US$42.4 billion. This group increased around 17.6%, in which agro-aquatic-forestry product group rose 12.7%, Thang was quoted by VietnamPlus as saying.

Meanwhile, fuel and mineral exports in the five-month period were around at US$4 billion, down US$145 million, or 3.5% against the same period of last year.

Thang said that export goods restructuring had improved, with fuel and mineral exports falling versus a strong increase in industrial-processing and agro-aquatic-forestry products.

In terms of markets, Vietnam’s exports to the United States jumped by 22.6% in the first five months of this year, the European Union (EU) by 14%, Japan by 12.6% and China by 23.7% compared to the year-earlier period.

Meanwhile, the nation’s imports were estimated at US$12.4 billion in May, rising 1.1% from April.

Between January and May, the nation reported total import value of nearly US$56.9 billion, a year-on-year rise of 9.6%. Foreign firms imported nearly US$32.6 billion, up 11.4%, while domestic firms’ imports were nearly US$24.3 billion, up 7.2%.

The nation reported a trade deficit of US$400 million in May, or 3.3% of the export revenue. However, Vietnam still ran a trade surplus of US$1.65 billion in the first five months, or 2.8% of the export value.

While domestic firms ran a trade deficit of over US$5.3 billion, foreign enterprises posted a trade surplus of nearly US$6.9 billion.

Notably, bilateral trade between Vietnam and China still grew well. Vietnam’s exports to the neighboring market were estimated at US$6.1 billion in the January-May period, or 10% of the total export revenue, while imports reached US$16.1 billion, or 28.3% of the total import value.

Vietnam mainly imported materials, machines and equipment from China while exporting agro-forestry products and raw materials to the country.

Vietnam’s trade deficit with China remained the biggest with around US$9.9 billion in the first five months of this year, up 9.5% year-on-year.    

SGT/VNN