Sluggish export growth reached only half of the target.

Severe weather and drought have had a big impact on the agricultural, forestry and fishery products.

The latest report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed that export volume of the last 7 months reached $96.83 billions USD, an increase of 5.3% compared with the same period last year. This was a much lower growth rate compared with the target of 10% which was set by the National Assembly.

Although the Minister of Industry and Trade has drastically provided strong guidance attached with many measures to promote export growth, but severe weather, drought and soil salinity in the first month have had negative impacts on many agricultural products, said Ms. Phan Thi Dieu Ha, Deputy Director of Agency of Foreign Trade under Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Along with that, the decline and political instability of some export markets led to negative impacts on exports of Vietnam.

With increase in trade obstacles and technical barriers of some importing countries as well as a rising number of countries which also exported similar products as Vietnam, have created difficulties for Vietnam exports.

A leader of Ministry of Industry and Trade expressed his concern about the upcoming time because the world economy and trade will face difficulties, which will have impacts on the trade balance of Vietnam.

Consequently, if there is no drastic exploitation in new and potential markets as well as traditional markets, the annual export growth would just stand at 8%.

On the other hand, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, import quotas have been successfully controlled with a trade surplus of $1.8 billion USD, equal to 1.9% of export volume.

According to Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, the solutions to boost exports in the remaining months are to minimize paperwork, reduce time and cost of administrative formalities performance in the field of import-export; and continue to implement specific solutions for the agricultural, forestry and fishery exports...