Workers at Eclat Vietnam Textile Co Ltd in Dong Nai Province.

Meanwhile, its import turnover was 9.8 billion USD, resulting in a trade surplus of nearly 3.5 billion USD.

Commodity groups recording high growth in export turnover compared to the same period last year included footwear with nearly 2.6 billion USD, up about 10 percent; iron and steel products (more than 535 million USD, up over 42 percent); textile and garments (nearly 950 million USD, up 11 percent) and machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts (1.3 billion USD, up 17 percent).

The main export markets of Dong Nai are the United States, Japan, China, the Republic of Korea and some European countries.

A representative of the provincial Department of Industry and Trade said that from the middle of 2020 and 2021, enterprises in Dong Nai were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a series of companies had to suspend production and export turnover suffered a sharp decline.

Since the beginning of this year, when the pandemic was brought under control, businesses have quickly restored production and increased their exports. This was an optimistic sign, reflecting that businesses are producing a larger amount of goods than before the pandemic, and have reconnected with customers as well as the world market, the official said.

In recent years, foreign-invested enterprises have accounted for more than 75 percent of the province’s export turnover and the remainders belonged to non-state and State-owned enterprises, with 23 percent and 2 percent, respectively. However, exports from non-state enterprises reached more than 2.5 billion USD in the first half of 2022, up 35 percent year-on-year, while the foreign-invested sector's exports increased just 7 percent.

Key export items of non-state enterprises included textiles, footwear, wooden products, coffee and pepper./.