The trade deficit in the first quarter of this year reduced to USD3.028 billion compared with USD3.5 billion in the same period last year due to a sharp increase in export value, said the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Export activities had increased sharply since early this year

The export value in the first quarter grew 33.7 per cent to USD19.25 billion against the same period last year.

The Government has a 10-per-cent target in export value growth for the year.

"This export value growth for the first quarter was the highest rate since 2004," head of the statistics office\'s trade department Le Thi Minh Thuy said.

The export activities had increased sharply since early this year in line with the world economic recovery. The total export value showed a year-on-year increase of 18 percent in January and 41.3 percent in February and reached USD7.5 billion in March, compared to USD4.8 billion in February.

In the first quarter, the export value\'s year-on-year increase was USD1.47 billion for coffee, up 115 percent; USD774 million for rubber, up 134 percent; USD1.29 billion for footwear, up 29.7 percent; USD2.79 billion for textiles and garments, up 27.9 percent, the statistics office said.

Meanwhile, the export value of crude oil jumped 15.7 percent in line with world crude oil prices, though the volume dropped by 12.3 percent to 2 million tonnes.

The export value in the first quarter increased by 40 per cent to USD8.79 billion in the State-owned sector and by 28.7 percent to USD10.46 billion in the foreign-invested sector.

The largest export markets during the first three months of the year included the US, the European Union, ASEAN and Japan.

"There were not signs of reducing exports from Viet Nam to Japan since the tsunami and earthquake hit that country in the first half of this month," Thuy said.

The growth rate of total import value in the first three months was up 23.8 percent to USD22.3 billion compared with the same period of last year. This was lower than the export value growth rate.

"However, the total trade deficit had a trend of increase month by month due to surges in the world prices," Thuy said. "The deficit jumped from USD766 million in January to USD1.11 billion in February and to USD1.15 billion in March."

During the first quarter, the import value jumped by 20.7 per cent to USD12.8 billion for the State-owned sector and by 28.4 percent to USD9.5 billion for the foreign-invested sector.

The import volumes of some products fell while their values increased due to a high price on the world market, the statistics office said. They included petrol, plastics, cotton, fibre, steel, electronic products, computer and auto.