Hanoi (VNA) - Total revenue from retail trade and servicesreached 361 trillion VND (15.84 billion USD) in January, surging 3 percent overDecember and 9.5 percent over the same month last year.
If inflation were excluded, the amount marked a year-on-yearincrease of 8.4 percent, a report of the General Statistics Office (GSO)revealed.
Retail sales of goods topped more than 272 trillion VND (11.93billion USD), up 3.5 percent month-on-month and 8.3 percent year-on-year asdomestic firms focused on stockpiling goods to meet rising demand of localconsumers for the forthcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday,GSO said.
Thesectors recording a positive revenue increase include home appliances (up 8 percent),food and foodstuff (up 7.5 percent) and transport services (up 5.6 percent).
Meanwhile, retail sales in accommodation, restaurant andcatering services experienced a yearly increase of 15 percent to 45.1 trillionVND (198 million USD), thanks to a strong increase in the number ofinternational and domestic tourists and a rising demand for restaurant andcatering services.
Some localities that posted positive accommodation, restaurantand catering sale in January were the northern province of Quang Ninh (30 percent),central Thanh Hoa province (15.2 percent), HCM City (9 percent) and the capitalcity of Hanoi (8.5 percent).
In the first month of this year, revenue from tourism servicesalso saw significant year-on-year growth of 39.3 percent to 3.9 trillion (171million USD), with some provinces and cities recording strong growth, such asNinh Binh (76 percent), Quang Ninh (46 percent), HCM City (44 percent), BacNinh (34 percent) and Hanoi (33 percent).
The reviewed strong increase was attributed to the positiveinfluence of the country’s policies and measures on attracting visitors andeffectiveness of its tourism promotion campaigns, GSO said.
The sales of other services during January reached more than 40.1trillion VND (1.76 million USD), a hike of 10 percent compared to a year ago.
The annual growth rate (excluding the price factor) of thecountry’s total revenue from retail sales of goods and services for the periodfrom now to 2020 will average at 13 percent per year, and rise to 14 percent in2021-25. The value will reach some 5.8 quadrillion VND by 2020, 11 quadrillionVND by 2025 and 44 quadrillion VND by 2035.
These fingures were revealledin the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s draft strategy on domestic tradedevelopment, which is being publicised for recommendations.
Domestic economic sector willaccount for some 80 percent of the country’s total retail sales revenue by2020, while the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector will make up about 20 percentbefore rising to 70 percent by 2025 as per off the draft strategy.-VNA