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Economic woes catch up with Viet Nam’s services exports
Services exports, which slowed down last year from several years of double-digit growth, declined sharply in the first half of this year.
According to a recent report from the General Statistics Office, growth fell to 9.8 per cent last year after peaking at 26.7 per cent in 2007. But in the first six months, exports plummeted 25.7 per cent to US$2.78 billion.
The country’s services revenues come mainly from tourism and air and maritime transport.
According to the World Trade Organisation, the service industry made an average contribution of over 20 per cent to the country’s exports between 1992 and 1998.
But this share has been falling gradually, to 10.2 per cent last year and 9.9 per cent in the first half of this year.
Dao Ngoc Lam, a former department official, said the sharp fall in exports in the last two years was mainly due to the global recession.
Tourism and air transport have both seen sharp declines globally.
In the first half of this year, export of tourism services, the biggest contributor to services exports, was down by 29 per cent to $1.55 billion year-on-year, Lam said.
The air transport sector, the second biggest contributor, saw revenues fall 5.7 per cent to $530 million.
The maritime transport sector saw revenue plunge 37.6 per cent to just $359 million.
Others, including finance, post and telecom, and insurance also saw significant falls of 12.5 per cent, 17.8 per cent and 11.4 per cent, respectively.
Lam said that like in many other developing countries, Vietnamese firms had not paid much attention to exporting services, focusing instead on goods export.
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