Vietnam saw a trade deficit of 300 million USD in March, equivalent to 1.2 percent of the country’s total export- import turnover, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

GSO statistics also show that exports rose 26 percent to 12 billion USD while imports jumped 22 percent to 12.3 billion USD.

Most export items enjoyed higher turnovers than the previous month. Garment and textile earned 1.6 billion USD from exports, up 53 percent; mobile phones and spare parts brought home 2 billion USD, up 16 percent; and electronic products fetched 850 million USD, up 37 percent.

Meanwhile, electronic components and machinery equipment topped the list of import items, with over 1 billion USD spent on each group.

The country’s total export earnings in the first quarter of this year were estimated at over 33.3 billion USD and its imports were over 32.3 billion USD, resulting in a trade surplus of 1 billion USD, or 1.53 percent of the total import-export revenue.

The foreign-invested sector still played a pivotal role with a trade surplus of nearly 4 billion USD, while domestic enterprises faced a trade deficit of nearly 3 billion USD.-VNA