Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Ha Noi, Dec. 27 (VNA) -- This year, Viet Nam has obtained an export value of 16.5 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of nearly 10 percent.
Ho Chi Minh City contributed 8.4 billion USD to the figure.

Twelve of the country's 15 main export products earned more export revenues than last year, including handicraft and fine art articles, coal, cashew nuts, and rubber. Three biggest foreign currency earners are crude oil with more than 3.2 billion USD, garments with 2.7 billion USD and aquatic products with more than 2 billion USD.

Of 23 major markets which have imported more than 100 million USD of goods from Viet Nam each, 10 have registered a growth rate of at least 10 percent.

Considerable growth was seen in export value to new markets such as Denmark, Finland, Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Especially, the U.S. imported more than 2 billion USD worth of Viet Nam's goods.

The achievements in export have resulted from the government's policies on export promotion, including the granting of preferential credits for exports, fee and charge exemption and reduction. Many activities have been organised to support exporters, promote trade and expand markets.

In 2002, Viet Nam, for the first time, hosted the Conference of the Association of Garment and Textile-exporting Countries, and asked the participants to support the proposal for the abolition of quotas on the export of garments and textiles to the EU market. The Viet Nam Bank for Foreign Trade (Vietcombank) has signed a framework agreement on funding with the International Bank of Moscow (IBM), under which Vietcombank will provide IBM with a credit of 20 million USD to support Russian businesses in purchasing Viet Nam's goods.

This year, 100 businesses and inter-branch economic delegations paid visits to Africa, China, Belarus, Ukraine, Japan, and the U.S. to survey market demand and promote trade. During the tours, many contracts for export of seafood, farm produce, handicraft and fine art articles and garments were signed. Viet Nam's trade promotion organisation has cooperated with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the trade promotion group of the APEC, and trade promotion organisations of Japan, Switzerland and the Republic of Korea in organising many trade promotion and business support programmes.

In addition to fairs and exhibitions held in the country, Vietnamese businesses have organized around 80 fairs abroad and taken part in many international fairs. As from 2002, the Government allocates 0.25 percent of the total annual export value for trade promotion activities.

Many businesses have also increased their investment, renewed technology and reorganised production to raise the competitiveness of their products.

Viet Nam plans to achieve an export growth rate of 7.5-8 percent in 2003.