Although international financial institutions have made pessimistic predictions about the global economy in 2012, Viet Nam has still set fairly high targets for industrial production and trade.

During a recent press meeting in HCM City, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade (MoIT) Nguyen Nam Hai said the value of industrial production in 2012 was expected to increase by 13 per cent over last year's figure. This would help ensure the nation's GDP growth rate of between 6 and 6.5 per cent.

He said all sources of investment would be mobilised for industrial production.

More incentives are expected to be given to support industries that supply materials for garment, textiles, leather and shoes, electronics, computers and spare parts and equipment for ship-building, car and motorbike production.

He said production of electricity, coal, petroleum, fertiliser and steel must be in full swing to meet the needs of the national economy.

In 2012, the nation's exports are expected to increase 13 per cent over last year, to earn US$108.8 billion.

Meanwhile, import value would reach $121.8billion, an increase of 15.2 per cent compared with 2011. This means that imports would increase 12 per cent over exports.

"We are striving to keep the trade surplus at 10 per cent," Hai said.

To reach the target, the ministry plans to diversify export items while improving its national trade promotion activities to help local businesses expand their market share and partnerships.

More incentive policies would be created to encourage the production of export goods and substitutes for imports using domestic materials.

As for the domestic market, the MoIT will ensure a stable supply of essential goods by developing production chains and modern distribution systems including supermarkets and shopping malls.

The promotion of domestic goods would be continued with the slogan, Vietnamese give priority to using Vietnamese goods.

Retail sales of goods and social services is expected to earn VND2,445 trillion, an increase of 23 per cent over 2011, according to MoIT.

The MoIT official, however, admitted that the industrial portion in the nation's GDP is still lower than the set target.

Because the industry is "extensively developed" with its main focus on assembling and processing, the sector's production value increase is always faster than its added-value growth rate.

Although the nation's export value has had a fairly high growth rate, it is unsustainable and has not matched its great potential, while the structure of export items remains inappropriate.

The great portion of materials, fuel and equipment imported in the textile-garment as well as leather and shoe industries shows these industries' heavy dependence on foreign suppliers, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region.