Vietnam is likely to reach a total export turnover of 95 billion USD for the year, based on the results of the past 10 months, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien said.

At an online meeting held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Nov. 7, Nguyen Tien Vy, director of the ministry's Planning Department, said the country's total export turnover is estimated to reach 78 billion USD in the first 10 months, an increase of 10 percent over the same period last year.

In October only, the figure was 8.3 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 34.6 percent in comparison with the same month last year.

Specifically, the export value of agriculture/forestry/seafood products in October reached 2.2 billion USD, bringing the total value of these products to 20.8 billion USD in the first 10 months.

Of this, the combined export turnover of rice, coffee, rubber, tea, pepper and cashew nuts was estimated at 11.6 billion USD; seafood at 4.95 billion USD; forestry products at 3.4 billion USD.

In particular, the export value of seafood products surged in most markets including the US (27.7 percent), the Republic of Korea (38.1 percent), China (47.5 percent) and Italy (42.1 percent).

Pham Van Bay, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, said that in the first 10 months of the year Vietnam had shipped 6.319 million tonnes of rice, up 8.4 percent in volume and 24 percent in price.

He also said the sector would export about 7 million tonnes of rice for the entire year, earning 3.5 billion USD in total export turnover.

Meanwhile, Vu Quang Nam , Deputy General Director of Petro Vietnam , said his corporation had fulfilled the year's target. Of this, revenues from crude oil had reached 10.4 billion USD.

Meanwhile, the ministry is optimistic on the trade deficit this year. Vy announced the total import turnover was estimated at 86.4 billion USD in the first 10 months, a year-on-year rise of 27.2 percent compared with the same period in the previous year.

Of this, the foreign direct investment sector imported 38.3 billion USD, accounting for 44.3 percent, while domestic enterprises imported 48.1 billion USD.

The import turnover in October alone fetched 9.1 billion USD, declining by 3.7 percent in comparison with September.

Nam said the trade deficit was estimated at 8.39 billion USD in the first 10 months of the year with the figure of 1.2 billion USD from foreign invested enterprises, amounting to 10.75 percent of the total export revenues.

Compared with the figure of 17.19 percent in the same period last year, the proportion of import revenues had declined gradually from several markets, such as China , ASEAN and the Republic of Korea .

In addition to increased export revenues, the trade deficit was expected to be lower, at under 16 percent, the ministry said../.