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The national economy has continued to grow encouragingly in the last eight months although it has experienced a number of difficulties in production and investment, natural disasters and diseases in plants and animals, say analysts from the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
The recently issued figures point to an increase of 13.7 percent in the value of industrial production, which was estimated at VND504 trillion. Surprisingly the figure is even higher than the yearly target of 12 percent.
The foreign-invested sector continues to lead in value, registering a growth of 17.3 percent. It was followed by the non-state sector at 12.7 percent and the state-owned sector with 9 percent.
Experts highlighted the stability in agricultural production during the reviewed period, citing the autumn-winter rice crop of 1,446,000 ha, equivalent to 98.8 percent of the same period last year and the maize crop of 936,000 ha, a rise of 12.5 percent.
Although diseases in plants have affected both rice and subsidiary crops nationwide, the effect has been marginal, noted experts.
They estimate that the country’s turnover of commodities and services will hit VND1,009 trillion in the reviewed period, or a surge of 62 percent year on year.
The earnings from export in the past eight months have reached $44.5 billion, an increase of 19.7 percent year on year.
Of this, $20.65 billion was provided by foreign-invested companies and $2.3 billion is due to rises in the prices of products in the world market.
The exports that registered rises include steel and iron (up 103 percent), chemicals and chemical products (83 percent), electrical wires and cables (72 percent), machinery, equipment and spare parts (61 percent), timber and furniture (36 percent) and computer, electronic products and components (30 percent).
Although imports in August fell by 1.5 percent to $6.9 billion, in the past eight months they reached $52 billion, a yearly rise of 24.4 percent.
As with exports, imports included $3.8 billion from rises in the prices of almost all imported items, such as liquefied gas up by 38.5 percent, petroleum up 35.5 percent and the raw materials to make plastics 32.4 percent.
By mid-August, the State budget had already collected VND313.5 trillion, or 67.9 percent of the yearly estimate.
This includes VND195.5 trillion from local sources (66.4 percent of yearly estimate), VND38.6 trillion from crude oil (52 percent of yearly estimate), and nearly VND76 trillion from imports-exports (79.6 percent of yearly estimate).
Besides these gains, the national economy still faces a number of difficulties including a high trade deficit, the rising prices of products on the world market, especially raw materials, a lack of capital, high interest rates for producers and manufacturers and the threat of diseases and natural disasters.
To address these difficulties and maintain a positive growth by the years end, State agencies need to focus on measures to promote production and business and manage the import of goods that could be produced locally and are non-essential, experts said.
They also urged the State to focus on product quality and detecting trade and tax fraud.
