Vietnam to post trade deficit of 1.2 bln dollars in February

Vietnam is expected to report a trade deficit of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in February 2017, said the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Tuesday.

The GSO's figures revealed that the country's total import-export turnover reached 27.2 billion U.S. dollars during the month. Of which, export turnover was 13 billion U.S. dollars, increasing 15.4 percent from the same period last year, while import turnover was 14.2 billion U.S. dollars or a year-on-year rise of 19.6 percent.

However, in the first two months of 2017, the country's total trade deficit was 40 million U.S. dollars as total export turnover was 27.34 billion U.S. dollars while import turnover was 27.38 billion U.S. dollars.

The GSO said many Vietnamese exported products saw a sharp decrease in February against the same period last year such as pepper, rice, cashew nuts, cassava, germ and ceramics.

Meanwhile, in February, many items posted surge in exports. Coal rose by 1,104 percent and 466 percent in terms of value and volume while rubber went up by 144 percent and 34.7 percent, respectively. Steel, phones, spare parts and machines also saw high export turnover.

At the same time, import turnover of automobiles with less than nine seats rose nearly 100 percent in value and 140 percent in volume year-on-year, while those of transport vehicles rose by 38 percent and rubber rose by 103.4 percent in terms of value.

Last month, Vietnam's trade deficit rose by 100 million U.S. dollars after enjoying a trade surplus of 2.68 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, said GSO.