HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam gained trade surplus of US$2.68 billion for this entire year, the General Department of Customs has reported.

The general department said the nation had total trade value of $349.2 billion this year, a year-on-year increase of 6.6 per cent. However, trade value in December reduced by 0.6 per cent to $32.3 billion, including $16.3 billion in import value and $16 billion in export value.

Việt Nam had $175.94 billion in export value, a year-on-year surge of 8.6 per cent, and $173.26 billion in import value, a year-on-year increase of 4.6 per cent in 2016.

This year, the nation gained trade surplus $2.68 billion, while last year, it had a trade deficit of $3.55 billion.

Groups of products with high export value this year did not witness many changes from the previous years, the general department said.

This year, telephones and their components had the highest export value at $34.51 billion, followed by $23.56 billion from textile and garment exports, 3.3 per cent higher than last year.

Other products with large export value included the group of computers, electronics and their components ($18.48 billion), the group of equipment, machines, tools and parts ($10.48 billion), footwear ($12.92 billion), seafood ($7.02 billion) and the group of transportation means and their parts ($6 billion).

Difficulties in market and price this year made export value of crude oil drop by 36.7 per cent to $2.35 billion, the general department said.

In 2016, the group of machines, equipment, tools and parts had the largest import value at $28.09 billion, 1.8 per cent higher than last year.

It was followed by the group of computers, electronics and their parts with total import value of $27.8 billion.

Import value of telephones and their parts dropped by 0.3 per cent year-on-year to $10.56 billion.

Other products such as steel, material for plastic, material and sub-material for textile, garments and footwear production had high import value of between $5 billion and $10.5 billion.

Việt Nam this year showed growth in import volume of petrol and oil at 14.2 per cent to 11.47 million tonnes. It, however, also saw a reduction in import value of these products at 11.7 per cent to $4.71 billion compared with last year. – VNS