Industrial output up 16.3% over last year

HA NOI — The country’s industrial output in the first two months of the year reached almost VND100 trillion (US$6.2 billion), an increase of 16.3 per cent over the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The non-State owned sector saw the highest growth, at 22 per cent, followed by the foreign-invested sector with 16.7 per cent and the State-owned sector with a spare 7.1 per cent.

February’s industrial output accounted for about VND46.41 trillion ($2.9 billion) of the two-month total, up 16.1 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Output for many key industrial products achieved higher growth than the same period last year. Electricity production increased 18 per cent, rolled steel production shot up 50 per cent, and air conditioner production climbed 32 per cent.

Total industrial output for 2007 was VND574.05 trillion ($35.88 billion), a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent.

The sector-by-sector breakdown for this figure was as follows: the State-owned sector increased 10.3 per cent year on year and accounted for 24 per cent of total industrial output, the non-State owned sector grew 20.9 per cent and accounts for 36.9 per cent of total output, and the foreign-invested sector took the lead with 21.3 per cent growth, accounting for 39.1 per cent of output.

Last year, many industries achieved high growth rates. Among these successful industries were car manufacturing (up 52.2 per cent), motorbike manufacturing (19.2 per cent), machine tools (69.8 per cent), air-conditioner (51.9 per cent), washing machine (21.3 per cent) and electric fan (18.6 per cent). — Viet Nam News

(Vietnam News, 2008/03/27)