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Exports to surge 30 percent to $63 billion
Export growth this year will accelerate to 30 percent from 22 percent last year, with total exports expected to hit US$63 billion, Vietnam News Agency has said quoting government forecasts.
The Industry and Trade Ministry forecasts also said exports in the last three months of this year would slow to $15.7 billion from $17.95 billion in the third quarter ending September due to lower prices of key export items, the agency said Monday.
The government forecast crude oil, Vietnam’s largest export, to hover at $80 to $95 per barrel CLc1 during the last months of this year “because oil demand on international markets has declined due to the impact of the global financial crisis.”
Vietnam is the third-largest crude oil producer in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Malaysia.
Textiles, its number two cash earner, would be affected by the crisis as 55 percent of Vietnamese products are sold to the US, while its third biggest export item, shoes, has been facing anti-dumping duty in the European Union, the ministry said.
It forecast rice demand to pick up in the last quarter of this year but said prices would not rise due to ample supplies. Vietnam was the world’s third-largest rice exporter last year after Thailand and India.
“In the future, rice prices will not fall below $500 to $600 a ton due to high production costs while the rice planting area cannot be expanded significantly,” the newspaper said.
The ministry forecast Vietnam’s annual exports to reach between $62 billion and $63 billion this year after they rose 46.5 percent in the third quarter from the same period last year.
Thanhnien
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