The country aims to keep its trade deficit below 3 percent of total export revenue.

Reports from the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) show that Vietnam earned 19 billion USD from exports in January 2018, up 33.1 percent compared with the same period last year. 

Export revenue of the domestic economic sector rose 31.6 percent, reaching 5.41 billion USD while that of the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector expanded 33.7 percent to 13.6 billion USD. 

Notably, the processed industry’s export turnover reached 15.62 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 34.6 percent, accounting for 82.2 percent of total exports.  

Items mainly contributing to the export turnover in the period were phones and spare parts, garment-textiles, electronic products, computers, footwear, machines, equipment and tools.

Asia was Vietnam’s largest export market with total turnover of 10.81 billion USD, up 54.4 percent year-on-year, followed by Oceania, America and Europe with respective growth of 31.1 percent, 17.5 percent and 7.4 percent.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s exports to Africa fell 9.5 percent compared to the same period last year. 

China remained the largest import market of Vietnam with turnover of 5.7 billion USD, up 45.6 percent year-on-year. It was followed by the Republic of Korea, ASEAN, Japan, the EU and the US. 

The ministry said global trade is predicted to grow by 3.9 percent in 2018 and this is expect to help Vietnam's trade growth.
 
The MoIT will work to devise measures to improve national competitiveness, thus creating a foundation for sustainable exports. 

Efforts made by the Government to promote administrative reform, simplify investment procedures and support start-ups, are hoped to create more commodities for export, especially in terms of processing and manufacturing and heavy industry. 

Vietnamese exporters of textiles, footwear, machines, equipment, tools and farm and seafood products will continue benefiting from free trade agreements between Vietnam and foreign partners. 

Experts forecasted that exports posting high growth in 2018 will be farm produce, textiles and footwear, adding that Vietnam need to develop new products to create breakthroughs in exports, and reduce dependence on FDI enterprises. 

Vietnam has 200 trade partners across the world with 29 export markets and 23 import markets.-VNA