Trade deficit reaches $1 billion within half a month near Tet

SGGP 28/01/2019 13:01

Vietnam’s export value reached US$9.2 billion while import value hit $10.2 billion, resulting in $1 billion trade deficit in the first half of January, 2019, reported the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

A textile mill (Illustrative photo: SGGP)

Import has been on the rise to meet surging demand for Tet holiday. Besides, businesses have imported machines, equipment and materials in stockpile for production and export after the holiday.

The import volume of completely built up cars has strongly increased contributing to the trade deficit. Within the first 15 days in January, the country imported 6,360 cars with the total value of nearly $158 million.

Asides from that computers, electronic products and components also belong to the group of commodities with high import turnover.

During the same period, major export items namely garment and textile products and accessories still topped $1 billion turnover. However some saw a sharp fall such as phones with the export turnover dropping to $1.3 billion, down $800 billion over the same period last year. Computers, electronic products and components declined by $50 billion. These all contributed to the trade deficit.

By Han Ni – Translated by Ngoc Thanh