Vietnam's import up 10.1 pct in first 4 months

HANOI, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam spent nearly 70.4 billion U.S. dollars importing goods in the first four months of 2018, seeing a year-on-year rise of 10.1 percent, and a trade surplus of roughly 3.4 billion U.S. dollars, the country's General Statistics Office said on Sunday.

Specifically, domestic sector made import turnovers of nearly 28.1 billion U.S. dollars, up 11.2 percent, and foreign-invested sector posted import turnovers of 42.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 9.3 percent.

Between January and April, Vietnam's import turnovers of electronic products, computers and components surged 22.3 percent to 13.4 billion U.S. dollars; phones and components increased 9.8 percent to 4.4 billion U.S. dollars; cloth climbed up 10 percent to 3.7 billion U.S. dollars; oil and petrol products surged 31.6 percent to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars; and plastic rose 22.2 percent to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars.

Regarding markets, China was Vietnam's biggest import market with turnovers of 18.1 billion U.S. dollars in the four-month period, up 5.8 percent, tailed by South Korea with 15.5 billion U.S. dollars, the ASEAN with 9.9 billion U.S. dollars, Japan with 5.9 billion U.S. dollars, the European Union with 4 billion U.S. dollars, and the United States with 3.6 billion U.S. dollars, said the office.

In 2017, Vietnam's total import turnovers stood at 211.1 billion U.S. dollars, and its export turnovers reached 214 billion dollars, creating a trade surplus of 2.9 billion U.S. dollars, according to the latest statistics released by the office. Enditem