Hanoi (VNA)🍸 – Despite impressive growth in the previous months, Vietnam's export turnover decreased in July compared to June, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

Statistics showed that the country's total export-import turnover in July reached 60.36 billion USD, up 6.1% year-on-year but down 6.8% month-on-month. The export value was 30.32 billion USD, up 8.9% year-on-year but down 7.7% compared to the previous month.   The drop was attributed to decreases in export earnings from agro-forestry-aquatic and manufacturing products, which recorded falls of 7.4% and 7.2% monthly, respectively. Notably, most agricultural products, excluding fruits, vegetables and rubber, suffered a reduction in export revenues, with fertilisers witnessing the highest drop of 33.3%. However, export earnings from farm produce in the first seven months of 2022 still enjoyed a year-on-year rise of 15% to 18.23 billion USD, accounting for 8.4% of the country's total export turnover. Similarly, the export value of manufacturing products also saw a month-on-month fall of 7.2% in July due to sharp drops in export turnover of computers, electronic products and components (down 22.6%); steel and iron (23.3%); cameras, film cameras and spare parts (15.4%). Export earnings from other strategic products also witnessed decreases, such as fibre (down 16.4%), wood and wooden furniture (7.5%), footwear (2.7%), and electric wires and cables (2.3%). In the January-July period, manufacturing product exports raked in 185.8 billion USD, up 16.1% from the same period last year and making up 85.9% of Vietnam's total export revenues. By July, the country's export turnover had reached 216.35 billion USD, up 16.1% from last year's period. In the period, 30 export commodities recorded over 1 billion USD turnover, accounting for 91.9% of the total export value.  The US remained the largest export market of Vietnam, buying 66.7 billion USD worth of products from the Southeast Asian nation, up 23.7% year on year and accounting for 30.8% of the total export revenues. China followed it with a turnover of 30.42 billion USD, up 6.5% yearly, and the European Union (EU) with earnings of 27.67 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 21.1%. Meanwhile, Vietnam's import turnover in July reached an estimated 30.3 billion USD, 3.4% higher than last year's but dropping 6% from the previous month. In the first seven months of 2022, the country spent 215.59 billion USD buying products from abroad, up 13.6% yearly. Vietnam imported the most from China, with an estimated value of 72.6 billion USD. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, prices of strategic and essential products such as petro and gas and materials like coal, wood, fertilisers, titan and alumina continued to rise, resulting in a rise in the country's import turnover. Materials for production made up 89% of the country's import turnover in the first seven months of the year, with a turnover of 191.6 billion USD, up 14.6% from the same period of 2021. Worthy of note, the import value of energy products continued to increase due to higher import volume and prices due to scarce supplies.  Specifically, the import turnover of coal rose 122.8% due to higher demand from coal-fired power plants; petro products, up 125.7%; crude oil, 31.2% and liquefied natural gas (LNG), 43.3%. The MoIT said a trade surplus of about 21 million USD was recorded in July, pushing the total in the first seven months of 2022 to 764 million USD. Vietnam posted a trade surplus of 18.7 billion USD with the EU in the January-July period, 41.5% higher than that of the same period last year, but a trade deficit of over 42.2 billion USD with China, 23.5 billion USD with the Republic of Korea and 7.9 billion USD with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)./.