Business

Difficulties still ahead for exports

Vietnam’s exports face many difficulties ahead despite strong growth in the first quarter as prices of input materials continuously increase, said an online conference in Hanoi on April 5.
Vietnam’s exports face many difficulties ahead despite strong growth inthe first quarter as prices of input materials continuously increase,said an online conference in Hanoi on April 5.

Speaking at the conference, which aimed to review the country’simport-export activities in the first quarter of the year and discussorientations for the remaining quarters, businesses’ representativessaid besides high input material prices, repeated power cuts cost themmore as they have to run their own electric generators to maintainproduction.

Tran Quoc Manh, Vice President of the HoChi Minh Fine Arts Association, suggested building wood materialwholesales markets to ease difficulties in the increasing prices ofinput materials.

Regarding trade promotion, inaddition to organising fairs and exhibitions in and outside the country,the businesses should directly bring their products to overseasdistribution systems, helping improve the products’ competitiveness inthe world market, he said.

According to DeputyMinister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien, Vietnam ’s exportturnover was estimated to reach 19.25 billion USD in the first quarterof 2011, up 33.7 percent year on year.

Also in the quarter, the country spent 22.2 billion USD on imports, a year-on-year increase of 23 percent./.
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