Ministry under pressure to reach export target

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) will have to take more measures in the remaining months of the year to meet the annual export target of 165 billion USD in 2015.

To achieve the target, domestic exporters must earn at least 45 billion USD between October and December this year, or an average of 15 billion USD per month, the ministry said.

There is huge pressure on the ministry to increase the total export value in the remaining three months of this year, because it has forecast a rise in trade deficit during this period as the domestic economy recovers.

The ministry said the trade deficit with China might continue to rise in the last quarter of this year, though the impact of the yuan's devaluation on Vietnam's imports and exports in the first nine months of this year was not clear.

According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam had a trade deficit of 3.9 billion USD, or 3.2 percent of the total export value, in the first nine months. Meanwhile, Vietnam had a trade deficit of 24.3 billion USD with China during the first nine months, an increase of 21.3 percent against the same period last year.

Vietnam continues to have a large trade deficit due to high import demand for the domestic production. It needs to import machines and equipment as well as materials for production, consumption and processing of export goods.

In the first nine months, Vietnam spent 113.5 billion USD for import materials and equipment for domestic production, an increase of 17 percent compared with the same period last year.

This year, Vietnam was set to sign many free-trade import agreements with its partners and join the ASEAN Economic Community, and so there was high demand for consumption and investment to increase production of enterprises, leading to more imports, the ministry said.

Therefore, the ministry will adopt policies to encourage local enterprises producing material and consumer goods with high quality and competitive prices, instead of importing materials for production.

The ministry would also promote programmes that prioritise the use of Vietnamese goods to control imports and reduce trade deficit, Tin tuc newspaper quoted the ministry's source as saying.

Meanwhile, to increase exports for a better trade balance, the MoIT as well as other relevant sectors will remove hurdles in the export of farming, forestry and fisheries products and expand export markets.

Economists have been saying for a long time that Vietnam should build a system of supporting industries that provide local materials for the manufacture of major products such as garments, textiles, footwear and machines.

In addition, Vietnam should diversify import markets to many countries such as the US, the EU and Japan to reduce dependence on imports from China, they said.-VNA