Vietnam seeking to boost exports: officials

Vietnam is seeking measures to boost exports as it is forecast to continue seeing a slow growth, officials said on Thursday.

Export prices and volumes of many agricultural and mineral products will continue their downward trends, affecting the increase of export value, Nguyen Tien Vy, Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Planning Department, said at a meeting here on Thursday.

Export growth is relying too much on foreign direct investment (FDI) and the country is depending much on imported input materials for production, thus leading to a decline in competitiveness in the event of price and policy changes from foreign countries.

Therefore, Phan Thi Dieu Ha, Deputy Head of the Department of Imports and Exports, said it is necessary to implement administrative reform and take advantage of free trade agreements with foreign partners amid decreasing of domestic enterprises' exports.

According to Vietnam's General Statistics Office, in the first eight months of 2015, Vietnam posted a 9-percent-increase in exports year-on-year, reaching 106.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

Among the total, the domestic sector registered some 31.7 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of 2.5 percent, while the FDI sector (including crude oil), recorded some 74.6 billion U.S. dollars in export revenue, an increase of 14.7 percent year-on- year.

On agro-forestry-fishery exports, the sector saw a nearly 5- percent fall year-on-year in export value in the first eight months of 2015, according to Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.