HANOI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam spent 130.6 billion U.S. dollars importing goods in the first seven months of 2018, seeing a year-on-year rise of 10.2 percent and a trade surplus of 3.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to the General Statistics Office on Monday.
Specifically, domestic sector made import turnovers of nearly 54.2 billion U.S. dollars, up 12.7 percent, and foreign-invested sector posted import turnovers of roughly 76.5 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.5 percent.
Between January and July, Vietnam's import turnovers of electronic products, computers and components rose 13.5 percent to 23.1 billion U.S. dollars; cloth increased 14.9 percent to 7.4 billion U.S. dollars; steel climbed up 11.6 percent to 5.9 billion U.S. dollars; oil and petrol products surged 36.4 percent to 5.4 billion U.S. dollars; and plastic rose 18.8 percent to 5.1 billion U.S. dollars.
Regarding markets, China was Vietnam's biggest import market with turnovers of 35.8 billion U.S. dollars in the seven-month period, up 13.1 percent, followed by South Korea with 26.5 billion U.S. dollars, the ASEAN with 18.1 billion U.S. dollars, Japan with 10.4 billion U.S. dollars, the European Union with 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, and the United States with 7 billion U.S. dollars, said the office.
In 2017, Vietnam's total import turnovers stood at 211.1 billion U.S. dollars, and its export turnovers reached 214 billion dollars, creating a trade surplus of 2.9 billion U.S. dollars.