National economy fares well over eight months

Cabinet members at their freshly-ended monthly meeting were upbeat about the country’s socio-economic performance over the past eight months and pleased with high growth rates recorded by some sectors.

Cabinet members at their freshly-ended monthly meeting were upbeat about the country’s socio-economic performance over the past eight months and pleased with high growth rates recorded by some sectors.

Noteworthy was the industrial sector, which increased its production by 16.2%. The high growth was attributed to strong developments in some major industries, including the fertiliser industry with 48.7% growth, the vehicle manufacturing industry with 43%, the machine-tool industry with 27.4%, and seafood processing industry with 17.6%.

HCM City’s industrial sector, which accounts for 23% of the country’s total industrial production value, grew 13.7% while that of Ha Noi rose 14.9%.

Over the past eight months, Vietnamese authorities licensed 490 new foreign invested projects from 35 countries and territories totalling $2,23mi. The figures showed increases of 8.9% in the number of projects and 79.6% in the amount of registered capital year on year.

Luxembourg was noted for having poured $770.5mil in two projects in Vietnam.

There were also increases in capital of existing foreign-invested projects.

Some 328 foreign invested projects increased their combined capital by $1,266mil in the reviewed period, of which 122mil was pumped into service projects.

The country earned $20.35bil from exports in the past eight months, an 8.7% rise compared with the corresponding period last year.

The figure included $4.58bil from crude oil, which represented a year on year increase of 29.6%. Vietnamese commodities have established a more stable niche in the US, Japan and Australia, and are finding ways to enter African markets.

In the period, imports reached $24.2bil.

On tourism, 2.32mil foreign visitors arrived in Vietnam over the past eight months, a 22.7% increase over the same period in 2004.

This is an auspicious sign for the hospitality industry, which must fulfil its target of receiving 3.2mil foreign tourists this year.

Cambodia is marked for posting the highest increase in the number of visitors to Viet Nam (132.6%), while China has the largest number of tourists (527,100).

(Source: VietnamNet)