With the high export turnover of US$3.1, US$3.4 and US$3.2 billion in January, March and April respectively, the possibility of achieving an export turnover of US$37-38 billion this year will be within reach.

Among nine key export products, many have obtained export growth exceeding average levels, such as electric wire and cable (up 45 percent), garment and textile (up 38 percent), woodwork (up 32 percent) and plastics (up 33 percent).

Notably, despite facing a lawsuit for dumping on the EU market, footwear exports still rose 20 percent over the same period last year thanks to effective market solutions.

Import activities also made significant progress in reducing import surplus. In the past four months, import value reached more than US$12,330 billion, an increase of only US$200 million compared to exports, meaning that import surplus was just US$200 million. This was considered a success in regulating import activities to reduce import surplus, as, by comparison, the import surplus of the first fourth months of 2003 and that of 2004 stood at US$1.3 billion and US$1.94 billion respectively.

In the reviewed period, domestic enterprises fetched an export turnover of US$1.2 billion while reducing import surplus by US$1 billion over the same period last year.

However, the level of import surplus among domestic businesses remained high (US$2.35 billion). Therefore, more attention should be given to boosting export activities and regulating import activities to reduce import surplus.

In addition, the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) has sharply increased, reaching nearly US$2.3 billion or 136 percent of last year’s first four-month level and 4.8 times higher than the level recorded in the same period of 2004.

Many major projects with a total investment of more than US$500 million in the hi-tech sector by a number of world prestigious economic groups have signaled a new change in the quality and quantity of foreign investment activities. With an average investment inflow of US$575 million per month since early this year, the yearly target of US$6.2 billion will be fulfilled or even over-fulfilled.

Meanwhile, market prices have been controlled effectively as the consumer price index (CPI) in the past four months stood at 3 percent, much lower than last year’s level of 4.8 percent and the 2004 level of 5.4 percent. The price stability in recent years has proved the Government’s active role in controlling the domestic market.

In mid 2003, the world was whirling with price hikes, particularly sharp increases in the prices of materials, industrial products and then, oil and gold. Later in early 2004, the Vietnamese market went into a tailspin for a short period due to the steel fever and in the middle and last months of the year, there were signs of speculation to drive the prices of sugar and drug up but the feverish situation was quickly put under control by the State.

This year, gold prices also soared in a short period but did not have much impact on the common price level despite a slow intervention by the banking sector.

The phenomenon of selecting gold as a currency to penetrate the monetary market will continue to occur every now and then as the country is strongly shifting into the market economy. There is growing public concern over further increase in the global gold prices that will send the domestic gold market into a tailspin again.

In the current world market situation, the prices of petroleum and gold and the exchange rates between the US dollar and other hard foreign currencies are becoming hot. So it is imperative to take account of domestic gold prices.