General Statistic Office reported that total retail sales and service turnover of 2009 reached over 1.197 trillion dong, averaging 13.9 million dong per person.
The group of the highest income earners (accounting for 20 percent) spent much on consumption. Particularly, the output of imported cars grew 1.5 times and the volume of domestically manufactured cars attained hundreds of thousand of units at high prices.
Converting into US dollar according to the 2009 average forex rate of 18,104 dong/US dollar, Vietnam's total retail sales and service turnover gained over $66.1 billion against 2005's $30.4 billion and 2008's $58.4 billion. If basing on the current forex rate, the purchase power of Vietnam jumped to over $200 billion. This is also the expected figure of domestic investors and businesses.
Vietnam's 2009 retail sales surged 18.6 percent year-on-year.
Excluding the average price increase of 6.88 percent, the retail sales growth was approximately 11 percent, higher two times than GDP growth of 5.32 percent. This showed that the domestic consumption rescued the local production while the export turnover for the first time in 18 years slumped 9.7 percent.
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