Vietnam’s exports face challenges: MPI
The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) presented its report at the regular government Meeting on December 1 stating that Vietnam’s exports are facing real challenges from the unfavourable evolutions of the world economy.
The ministry said that the complicated changes of the world currency markets, particularly after the US passed the economic bailout package Monday worth $600 billion, with inflation rising in many countries may lead to adjustments in the domestic currency exchange rate against the dollar in some economies.
In particular, the Yuan will continue to strengthen, which is believed to have a direct effect on Vietnam’s exports.
Vietnam’s exports to the US market may rise slightly due to the Yuan rise leading to Chinese goods become more expensive.
But the US dollar continuing its downtrend will also make foreign goods into the US market in general, including goods of Vietnam, become more difficult to compete with US goods.
Besides, the demand in major markets like USA, Europe, Japan and the trend of rising trade protectionism in these markets will make Vietnam’s exports more difficult than before.
The planning and investment ministry also said that the US government has launched a new bailout package, while the base rate unchanged, which will increase the investment portfolio flows to emerging economies, including Vietnam. These cash flows can be “flowing” into the channels, such as securities, real estate and others and could destabilise Vietnam’s financial market and balance of payments.
Also, the dollar price fluctuations will cause the trend of gold reserves and other essential commodities such as crude oil, precious metals and others continue to rise and boost pressures on commodity prices in the country.
The report of the Ministry of Planning and Investment stated that in the first 11 months of this year, Vietnam’s total export turnover reached $63.4 billion, up 24.5 percent over the same period in 2009 and 4 times more compared with the year’s targets.
As for foreign invested enterprises (FIEs), exports even increased by 40.3 percent with a total export value of $30.3 billion.
However, the export growth has increased thanks in part to the price rise of commodities, such coal fell 26.8 percent in export volume, but turnover increased to 12.2 percent.
By the end of November, there were 16 export commodities that joined “the $1 billion export club”, including textiles, footwear, seafood, crude oil, electronics and computers, wood and wood products, rice, gems and precious metals, machinery, rubber, coffee, vehicles and spare parts, coal, electric wires and cables, oil, cashew nuts.
Industry and trade ministry forecast that in the last month of this year, Vietnam’s exports will continue to enjoy positive changes. In 2010, exports will likely to reach $70.8 billion, up 24 percent compared to 2009, and by 16.5 percent over the year’s plan.
Category: Economy
