The General Statistics Office (GSO) has reported that Vietnamese businesses earned US$10.3 billion in January from exporting garments, computers and computer accessories, seafood, crude oil, wood and wood products, steel and rubber, representing a 10.8% drop year on year.
Imports posted a slight decrease of 1.9% over the same period, totaling US$10.4 billion and leaving a monthly trade deficit of around US$100 million.
Vietnam exports mainly crude oil, rubber, textiles, electronics and computers, seafood and rice, while importing mainly plastics, base metals, garment accessories, transportation vehicles and fertilisers.
Foreign-invested businesses continued to play a larger role in trade activities than did domestic firms, according to the GSO. These businesses saw a year-on-year increase of nearly 66%, recording an export turnover of US$6.7 billion.
Domestic businesses, on the other hand, posted a turnover of US$3.5 billion, a decrease of 13.8% over January 2013.
In January, the export revenue of many items plummeted with respect to the previous year’s figures. Coffee brought in US$250 million (a decrease of 45.7%), tea and rice earned US$17 million (-15.6%) and US$165 million (-18.9%) , and crude oil posted a revenue of US$480 million, a decrease of 34.7%.
The import value of foreign-invested and domestic businesses also declined. Foreign businesses posted an import value of US$5.8 billion, a decrease of 1.5% over the same period last year. The import value of domestic businesses totaled US$4.6 billion, a decrease of 2.3%.
The import rate fell for many items used for domestic production such as fertilisers, electronics, computers and computer accessories, motorcycles, machinery and equipment.
Le Minh Thuy, a GSO analyst, attributed January’s decline in exports and imports to the preoccupation of local businesses and people with preparations for Tet (the Lunar New Year).
