Vietnam’s export volume saw an increase of 3.5 percent in September, reaching 4.7 billion USD in revenue, reported the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Sept. 29.

Apart from crude oil, which fell by 45.6 percent, almost every other exported product has kept pace with previous years, said the GSO.

Among the key items, the garment and textile sector saw a slight decrease of one percent, earning just over 6.7 billion USD.

Electronic goods, computers and spare parts earned 1.92 billion USD, while machinery and other equipment pocketed nearly 1.4 billion USD. The two figures are equal to the same period last year.

Thanks to successfully penetrating the global market, a number of agricultural products saw a strong increase, such as pepper (52 percent), rice (34 percent), tea (nearly 20 percent), coffee (14.4 percent) and rubber (7 percent).

According to the GSO, there was a change in the structure of exports in the first nine months of the year.

Re-exported gold accounted for 6.3 percent of the total export turnover. However, heavy industry, minerals, and domestic and light industries fell, while agricultural, forestry and seafood exports increased.

Despite the positive signs in September, the export sector still saw a fall of 14.3 percent in the first nine months of the year, earning just 41.7 billion USD, the GSO said.

The export volume from the domestic economic sector dropped by 8.3 percent, and the FDI sector, including crude oil exports, fell by 19.3 percent.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the exports sector was expected to make 56.7 billion USD for the whole year, a decrease of 12.5 percent in comparison with the figure of last year.

In the first nine months of the year, the excess of imports over exports was 6.54 billion USD. Key items that Vietnam imported were oil, electronics, computers, spare parts and pharmaceuticals./.