Vietnam raked in 109.63 billion USD from exports in January-September, moving closer to its goal of 148 billion USD which is up around 12 percent year-on-year and 10 percent against the National Assembly’s target.

The nine-month figure marked a 14.2-percent annual gain, with 73 billion USD contributed by foreign investors, up 14.1 percent. Earnings from apparels and cell phones are expected to top 20 billion USD this year, reported the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Month-on-month, the export revenue fell by 6.6 percent to 12.4 billion USD in September. However, seafood, pepper, cashew nut and coffee soared roughly 25 percent in earnings while vegetables expanded by 42.7 percent on year, said Deputy Director of the ministry’s Agency of Foreign Trade Phan Thi Dieu Ha.

During the nine-month period, Africa beat others to become the fastest-growing importer of Vietnamese goods, notably Egypt and Algeria recording a plus-50 percent expansion.

As Africa is on track to development, it predominantly bought computers, electronic products and accessories, garment, cell phones, transport vehicles and spare parts, machinery, footwear, construction materials, seafood, coffee and pepper from Vietnam.

Latin America and the Caribbean region are also among Vietnam’s major markets, buying 25.22 billion USD worth of goods from the country, a yearly increase of 25 percent. Chile paid out as much as 354 million USD, or a record 132.9 percent growth that is ascribed to the bilateral free trade agreement valid since January 2014.

Earlier in July, Vietnam shipped 250 million USD worth of goods to Chile while spending 203 million USD on imports from the South American country. The figures have ended Vietnam’s long-time history of running trade deficit with Chile.-VNA