The growth rate was better compared with last January but the value declined by 2.5 percent compared with December, said Statistics Office economist Nguyen Quang Ha. The industrial value early last year was low due to the economic downturn but got better in the latter part of the year thanks to economic recovery.
The increase in production value in the first month of this year was a sign of possible high-speed growth in the industrial sector this year, he said.
Many key industrial sectors had strong growth in production during January against the same period last year, including liquefied petroleum gas (36.2 percent), sport shoes (35.1 percent), ceramic tiles (32.5 percent), auto and tractor tires (26.8 percent), glass (20.7 percent), cement (18.9 percent, clothes (17.2 percent), steel (15.9 percent) and electricity (14.3 percent).
However, some consumer goods had a reduction in output for the first month. The output fell by 78.2 percent for air conditioning, 41.6 percent for trucks, 15.3 percent for televisions and 13.6 percent for assembled autos.
During the first month of this year, the foreign-invested sector showed the largest industrial production value at 31.7 trillion VND (1.5 billion USD), 18.5 percent higher than the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the private sector saw a 18.9-percent year-on-year rise in production value to 27.2 trillion VND (1.3 billion USD) and the value made by the State-owned industrial sector had a slight increase of 6.7 percent to 14.8 trillion VND (704.7 million USD)./.
