Vietnam enjoys US$5.39 billion trade surplus in nine months

The General Statistics Office (GSO) announced on September 28 that Vietnam posted a trade surplus of US$5.39 billion in the first nine months of 2018, which was attributed to the large trade surplus in the FDI sector.

In the nine-month period, Vietnam reported total export revenues of US$178.91 billion, up 15.4% over the same period in 2017 (illustrative image)
In the nine-month period, Vietnam reported total export revenues of US$178.91 billion, up 15.4% over the same period in 2017 (illustrative image)

In the nine-month period, Vietnam reported total export revenues of US$178.91 billion, up 15.4% over the same period in 2017. There were 26 types of commodities with export revenues surpassing US$1 billion, accounting for 90.3% of the total export revenue of Vietnam.

During the period, the country also posted US$173.52 billion worth of import revenues, a rise of 11.8% over the same period last year. Vietnam also saw 30 types of commodities with import revenues of over US$1 billion each, making up 87.5% of the country’s total import revenue.

Regarding the service sector, Vietnam earned an export revenue of US$11.1 billion in the first nine months of this year, an annual increase of 14.6% including US$7.6 billion from the tourism sector (accounting for 68.3% of the total export value of the service sector) and US$2.2 billion from the transport sector (accounting for 19.4% of the total export value of the service sector).

The sector also posted total import revenues of approximately US$13.8 billion, a rise of 8.1% over the same period last year, resulting in a trade deficit of US$2.7 billion, equivalent to 24.2% of the sector’s export revenue.