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Foreign firms’ exports likely to fall by 15 pct, says ministry
Exports by foreign firms in Vietnam are expected to fall by 10- 15 percent to US$19-20 billion this year as a result of plummeting global demand due to the economic slowdown, said the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
In the first two months, their exports were down 8.8 percent to $2.97 billion, the ministry said.
Panasonic Communications Vietnam Co., Ltd, which produces communications products like phones, is expected to cut its output by almost 25 percent, the company’s administrative and planning director Osashaki Masshiro said at a meeting the ministry held with foreign companies in Hanoi Friday.
Many of its customers in the two biggest markets, the US and Russia, have canceled contracts since last September, he said.
As a result, the company has stopped making products like optical drivers for laptops and is focusing on production of traditional items after having cut its payroll by 30 percent in March, he said.
An executive from a footwear firm in northern Hai Duong Province said his company’s turnover is likely to halve this year.
Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang said: “The global financial crisis will make exports difficult in 2009.”
Achieving the government’s export growth target of 13 percent this year is going to be difficult after exports grew by less than 3 percent in the first quarter, he said.
To help firms overcome their difficulties, the Panasonic official urged the government to improve infrastructure, especially ports and airports, to facilitate business once the world economy recovers.
Nguyen Ngoc Son from the management board of the Phu Tho Industrial Park, which houses 200 foreign firms, mainly South Korean, involved in making garments and packaging for export, wanted official agencies to help firms with trade promotion.
He has also asked local authorities to help firms provide vocational training to employees, since the skills of some workers are inadequate. Some other delegates agreed with Son, saying they have met with difficulty in finding skilled employees despite the plentiful availability of manpower.
Other firms asked the government to reform custom procedures, help provide housing to workers in industrial parks, cut export tax, and help them obtain bank loans.
“Custom procedures are too protracted. Vietnam has electronic customs but it still takes firms a lot of time,” said a representative from Suncall Technology Vietnam Company, which makes components for printers.
An official from the General Department of Vietnam Customs said since his agency has introduced the electronic customs model in Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong only on a trial basis, there are still problems.
The government seeks to make 80-90 percent of import-export procedures electronic by 2012 to catch up with other Southeast Asian countries. In 2009 the department would revamp its procedures, he said.
Deputy governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, Nguyen Van Binh, said the bank would keep interest and exchange rate policies stable but flexible.
Hoang said his ministry would report about the condition of companies and their production to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and recommend appropriate measures to help them.
Foreign invested firms earned $24.2 billion from exports last year, a 24 percent increase over 2007 and accounting for 44 percent of the country’s total exports, the ministry reported.
Ngan Anh
thanh nien
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