Le Minh Thuy, an official of the GSO, attributed the decrease in exports to the prolonged Lunar New Year holiday.

In the first two months of this year, exports from the foreign-invested sector rose to over VND5.3 billion. Crude oil, in fact, saw a 26.2 percent year-on-year increase, meanwhile, the domestically-invested sector’s export turnover fell by 21.2 percent to US$3.88 billion.

However, according to Mr Thuy, the picture was far from bleak, as export prices increased on the world market thanks to the global economic recovery.

Rubber prices, for instance, rose by 82.6 percent and crude oil by 63.9 percent. Coal and rice increased by 59 and 25 percent, respectively.

Industrial exports showed handsome increases in turnover: electrical wires rose by 99.7 percent to US$168 million, garment and textile items rose by 16.8 percent to US$1.5 billion, and wood and wood products by 29.2 percent to US$467 million.

Import turnover grew to more than US$10 billion, up 39.6 percent. This increase was also attributed to higher prices for basic commodities such as petrol and raw materials on the world market.

Among imported items, petrol increased by 20.1 percent to US$939 million, imported steel saw a turnover of US$616 million, up 34.6 percent, and paper and clothing increased by 5.6 percent and 9.3 percent to US$102 million and US$523 million, respectively. The trade deficit in the first two months stood at US$1.75 billion.

The GSO official warned that this trade deficit would continue to rise as the State Bank of Vietnam adjusted its US dollar exchange rate and there remained no sign of a stable economic recovery in the US and the European Union (EU) – Vietnam’s two biggest export markets.