Viet Nam estimated on Thursday its trade gap in January sank to just $300 million, a fraction of the $2.41 billion deficit the country had in the same month last year as the value of key imports plunged.

Imports this month were estimated at $4.1 billion, down nearly 45% from the same period last year as traditionally big import items such as oil and steel products suffered sharp drops, the government statistics office said in a report.

Oil product imports were expected to tumble to a quarter of last January to just $244 million due to lower world prices.

Exports in January were expected to dip 24.2% from the same period last year to $3.8 billion, mainly due to lower world crude prices.

Crude oil exports, Vietnam’s main cash earner, fell more than 50% from a year earlier to just $424 million, even though volume rose 12.4% to 1.38 million tonnes, the government report said.

Coffee shipments were expected to fall nearly 19% to 140,000 tonnes while export value would plunge nearly 30% from a year ago to $217 million.

Rice was the only key export item that rose in both value and volume this month with shipments forecast to jump 129.2% from a year ago to 300,000 tonnes and value up 152.8% at $130 million. (Reuters)