Vietnam, Malaysia see trade drop in H1

Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – Trade revenue between Vietnam and Malaysia reached 5.48 billion USD in the first half of 2019, down 6.2 percent year on year, according to Vietnam’s Trade Office in Malaysia.

Notably, Vietnam’s export earnings in the market dropped 2.6 percent to 1.95 billion USD, while its imports experienced an 8.1 percent drop to 3.5 billion USD, reported the office.

The sharpest plunge was seen in imports of petrol at 41.6 percent, followed by machineries and spare parts at 20 percent, animal and vegetable oil at 14 percent, material plastics at 11.2 percent.

Household electrical appliances and accessories were the only group that saw increase in import revenue in the market in the first half of this year at 8.7 percent.

Meanwhile, exports of many major products were also down in the period, including computers, electronic products and accessories (25.3 percent), telephones (30.2 percent), crystal and crystal products (24.4 percent).

However, rise was seen in other groups such as machineries and accessories, transport vehicles, and fisheries.

In June alone, trade between Vietnam and Malaysia was 806.6 million USD, down 14.6 percent over the same period last year, with imports declining 19.3 percent to 485.7 million USD and exports falling 6.9 percent to 320.98 million USD.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, in the first six months of 2019, Malaysia invested in 18 projects in Vietnam with total capital of 21.28 million USD.

As of June 20, 2019, Malaysia ran 599 projects in Vietnam with 12.5 billion USD, ranking eighth in 132 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.-VNA