Manufacturing sector drives economic growth

 

Hanoi (VNA) - The manufacturing and processing industry drove economic growth in 2019 with production volume increasing 11.29 percent over the previous year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Contributing 2.33 percentage points to Vietnam’s gross domestic product growth of 7.02 percent in 2019, the manufacturing and processing industry played a key role in national economic development, the GSO’s Director Nguyen Bich Lam said.

GSO statistics revealed overall industrial production in 2019 rose by 8.86 percent over the previous year, contributing 2.91 percentage points to the country’s GDP growth.

Industrial production had a good year with the focus being the manufacturing and processing industry, reflecting the transition in the structure of industrial production going on the right track, Lam said.

Of note, the mining industry reversed its downward trend in the last three years, posting a slight increase of 1.29 percent. The mining industry saw a drop of 4 percent in 2016, 7.1 percent in 2017 and 3.11 percent in 2018 due to declines in crude oil production.

The recovery of the mining industry largely came from coal production's 11.6 percent increase.

Electricity production rose by 9.14 percent with output of 227.4 billion kWh, statistics showed.

Other sectors also saw good growth rates, such as metal production (up 28.6 percent), rubber and plastic products (14.3 percent), paper products (11.6 percent) and garment and textile (11.4 percent).

Sales of industrial products rose 9.5 percent, slightly lower than the growth rate of more than 10 percent of 2018./.