Vietnam trade deficits hit $800m in first 4 months

Vietnam hit a trade deficit of 800 million U.S. dollars in the first four months of this year when it pocketed only 39.4 billion U.S. dollars from the exports while spending 40.2 billion dollars on imports during the period, according to the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) on Thursday. The figures posted a year-on-year increase of 16.9 percent in export value and was up 18 percent for the import value. Of the total export value, the domestic sector contributed with 13.9 billion dollars, up 7 percent, and the foreign direct invested (FDI) sector with 25.5 billion dollars, including crude oil, up 23.2 percent, year on year. Meanwhile, of the total import value, the domestic sector spent 18.4 billion dollars, up 10.5 percent, while the FDI sector disbursed 21.8 billion dollars, up 25.2 percent, year on year. In the first three months, the country earned a trade surplus of 481 million U.S. dollars that accounted for 1.6 percent of the total export value, according to GSO.