Industrial production value in 2008 surpassed the National Assembly’s annual target by 11%, reaching 653 trillion VND (39.5 billion USD), reported the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Total industrial production in 2008 was 14.6% higher than the previous year, but still below the annual growth rate of earlier years due to the impact of the global economic crisis, the office said.

Foreign-invested enterprises topped the list, sharing 40.1% of the total value and registering a growth rate of 18.2%. Private enterprises followed with 34.5% of the total value and an 18.5% growth rate, and state-owned enterprises with 25.5% and 5%, respectively.

The GSO attributed the production surge to a strong boost of the processing and manufacturing sector, which generated 580 billion VND (35.1 billion USD), up 16% over last year and accounted for 88.9 percent of the total industrial production value.

Most products experiencing a high growth rate are in the processing and manufacturing sector such as processed seafood (29.1%), trucks (40.6%), buses (38.3%), washing machines (28%), electricity transformers (22.6%) and powdered milk (18.6%).

The country generated 75 billion kilowatt per hour of electricity, an increase of 12.3% over 2007.

Meanwhile, some of key industrial products experienced a slow growth rate as compared to a year earlier. Motorbikes saw a mere 5.5% increase, paper and cardboard 2.3%, and fertiliser 1%.

Some other products even experienced declines such as crude oil, down 6.6% to 14.8 million tonnes; coal, down 6.1% to 40 million tonnes; steel bar, down 10.6% to 3.5 million tonnes; and cotton fabric, down 1.8% to 242 million sq.m. (VNA)