HANOI, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's trade deficit widened to more than 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months of this year, equal to 3.9 percent of the total export value during the period, the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) said on Monday.
Specifically, the country earned over 49.9 billion U.S. dollars from exports during the first five months, a rise of 15.1 percent over the same period last year. Meanwhile, it spent mover 51.8 billion U.S. dollars for imports, up 16.8 percent year on year.
The foreign direct investment (FDI) sector continued to experience a trade surplus of about 4 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months, while the domestic sector's export turnover increased by only 2.1 percent, reaching 17.119 billion U.S. dollars, according to the GSO.
More than 55 percent of the import turnover came from the FDI sector, which saw an increase of 25.4 percent over the same period last year, and the domestic sector experienced a growth in import turnover of only 7.6 percent.
Major exports earning high value included telephones and devices, with an export value of 7.7 billion U.S. dollars, up 103. 1 percent year on year. Garment exports totaled 6.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 16.7 percent.
Meanwhile, major imports included computers, electronic and appliances that worth 7.1 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 53. 6 percent from a year earlier. Imports of machines, equipment and spare parts stood at 7 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.5 percent.
In the first four months, Vietnam hit a trade deficit of 722 million dollars, and insiders attributed the widened figure this month to increasing imports of raw materials for domestic manufacturing sectors.
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