Phones and components top Vietnam’s export revenue in 2019, with value of 51.8 billion U.S. dollars, posting a year-on-year increase of 5.3 percent and accounting for 19.7 percent of Vietnam’s total export revenue, according to the country’s General Statistics Office on Wednesday.
In December alone, Vietnam raked in 3.3 billion U.S. dollars from selling the products overseas, up 10 percent on-year.
The country also spent roughly 14.7 billion U.S. dollars importing phones and their components in the twelve-month period, down 7.9 percent.
In 2019, Vietnam’s total trade turnover reached 516.96 billion U.S. dollars with export turnover of 263.45 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.1 percent against 2018. The country posted a trade surplus of 9.94 billion U.S. dollars, the highest level in the past four years.
Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has stated that the country’s economy is likely to expand by more than 7% in 2019, the second year in the last five that such a rapid increase has been.
Citing calculations by the Ministry of Finance, Vuong Dinh Hue said inflation in 2019 is to be estimated at 2.73%, which is much lower than the growth rate, making the already strong growth figure even more significant.
In 2019 inflation has been primarily driven by higher food and fuel prices, especially in the latter half of the year when pork prices skyrocketed as supplies were reduced sharply due to the result of the deadly African swine fever.
But overall price increases have been restrained thanks to appropriate management which combines various measures in line with market developments and scenarios constructed by the steering committee.