During the first quarter this year, Vietnam's export turnover posted a rise of 1.6 percent against the same period last year to $14.457 billion whereas the country's import spending also saw a rise of up to 40.2 percent year-on-year to $17.857 billion, reported general Department of Vietnam Customs.

Therefore, Vietnam's Q1 trade gap was $3.4 billion instead of $3.5-3.6 billion as previously estimated, accounting for 23.5 percent of total export turnover and exceeding the target of 20 percent approved by the National Assembly (NA).

Notably in Q1, Vietnam imported over 10 tonnes of gold worth hundreds of million US dollar.
Particularly, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) enterprises reported higher import spending than the country's average rise. FDI disbursement in Q1 was $2.5 billion against the figure of the same period last year of $2.2 billion.

Although crude oil export decreased 47.1 percent in quantity and 9.1 percent in value, FDI firms' export turnover in Q1 increased 43.4 percent year-on-year, 27 fold increase against the common growth, reaching $6.8 billion, accounting for 47 percent of the country's total export turnover.

Meanwhile, FDI enterprises' import spending rose up to 57.3 percent year-on-year to $7.3 billion, accounting for 41 percent of the country's total import spending.

In terms of commodities, export turnover increased strongly in the groups of chemicals, rubber, steel and iron, electrical wire and cable, transport means and spare parts and decreased in both quantity and value in groups of gemstones and precious metals, coffee, crude oil, cassava and products from cassava and rice.

As for import spending, only items of completely built up CBU motors and fertiliser decreased in both volume and value, gasoline and LPG decreased in quantity but increased in value and remaining items increased in value such as livestock feed, tobacco materials, rubber, cotton types, gemstone, precious metals, common metals, auto spare parts with a rise of over 100 percent.

Notably, in Q1, Vietnam's export turnover to the US market reached $2.029 billion.

However, Vietnam's import spending from China market was $2.556 billion, Korea at $1.285 billion, Taiwan at $1.193 billion, Thailand at $925 million, and Singapore at $355 million and Japan at $152 million.

(Source: Intellasia)