At an online meeting held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on November 7, Nguyen Tien Vy, director of the ministry's Planning Department, said the country's total export turnover was estimated to reach $78 billion in the first 10 months, an increase of 10 per cent over the same period last year.

In October only, the figure was $8.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 34.6 per cent in comparison with the same month last year.

Specifically, the export value of agriculture/forestry/seafood products in October reached $2.2 billion, bringing the total value of these products to $20.8 billion in the first 10 months.

Of this, the combined export turnover of rice, coffee, rubber, tea, pepper and cashew nuts was estimated at $11.6 billion; seafood at $4.95 billion; forestry products at $3.4 billion.

In particular, the export value of seafood products surged in most markets including the US (27.7 per cent), the Republic of Korea (38.1 per cent), China (47.5 per cent) and Italy (42.1 per cent).

Pham Van Bay, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, said that in the first 10 months of the year Vietnam had shipped 6.319 million tonnes of rice, up 8.4 per cent in volume and 24 per cent in price.

He also said the sector would export about 7 million tonnes of rice for the entire year, earning $3.5 billion in total export turnover.

Meanwhile, Vu Quang Nam, deputy general director of PetroVietnam, said his corporation had fulfilled the year's target. Of this, revenues from crude oil had reached $10.4 billion.

Meanwhile, the ministry is optimistic on the trade deficit this year. Vy announced the total import turnover was estimated at $86.4 billion in the first 10 months, a year-on-year rise of 27.2 per cent compared with the same period in the previous year.

Of this, the foreign direct investment sector imported $38.3 billion, accounting for 44.3 per cent, while domestic enterprises imported $48.1 billion.

The import turnover in October alone fetched $9.1 billion, declining by 3.7 per cent in comparison with September.

Nam said the trade deficit was estimated at $8.39 billion in the first 10 months of the year with the figure of $1.2 billion from foreign invested enterprises, amounting to 10.75 per cent of the total export revenues.

Compared with the figure of 17.19 per cent in the same period last year, the proportion of import revenues had declined gradually from several markets, such as China , ASEAN and the Republic of Korea .

In addition to increased export revenues, the trade deficit was expected to be lower, at under 16 per cent, the ministry said.