The nation ran a trade deficit of 1.4 billion USD in the first six months of this year, equivalent to 2.3 percent of the country's total export turnover.

The country's total export turnover in the first half of the year reached 62.053 billion USD, a rise of more than 16.1 percent over the same period last year. Total import turnover jumped 17.4 percent, reaching 63.456 billion USD.

The foreign direct investment (FDI) sector continued to surpass the domestic sector in both exports and imports, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO)'s Trade Department.

The FDI sector contributed up to 41.14 billion USD to the total export turnover, a rise of 24.7 percent over the same period last year, while the domestic sector saw a slight increase of only 2.2 percent.

The FDI sector also saw imports increase by 27.8 percent to 35.726 billion USD, significantly higher than the domestic sector's 6.3 percent increase.

In the first half of the year, the FDI sector recorded a trade surplus of up to 5.414 billion USD. June alone accounted for 2.55 billion USD of that surplus.

FDI enterprises mainly exported phones, electronics and garment-textile products and imported mainly raw materials for production.

According to the GSO, imports from China in the first six months of the year hit 17 billion USD, accounting for 26 percent of the country's total import turnover – a rise of 33.2 percent over the same period last year.

The excess of imports over exports hit nearly 11 billion USD, increasing up to 64.3 percent.

Products imported from China were mainly used by domestic enterprises involved in industrial production. They included plastics, chemicals, iron and steel, fertilisers and pesticides.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the domestic industrial production sector was recovering, estimated to rise 5.3 percent and see a long-awaited decrease in inventories.-VNA