Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The electronics industry is forecast to have arobust year, driven by the increase in demand for communications’ products dueto demand caused by social distancing measures implemented to tackled risingcases of COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said that as the COVID-19 pandemic hasdeveloped exports of many products saw significant drops although some keyindustrial products saw considerable increases in the first seven months ofthis year.

Statistics showed that the export of phones and components brought in 29.35billion USD from January – July, up 11.9 percent against the same period lastyear. More than 128 million mobile phones were produced in the period, up by 14.1 percent.

That Vietnam’s phones and components exports kept growing was a good sign,signalling a year of strong growth for the electronics industry, which wouldcontribute significantly to the country’s economic recovery and to achievinggrowth targets, the ministry said.

Phones and components were the top export products of Vietnam, which accountfor 15.8 percent of the country’s total export revenue in the first sevenmonths of this year, followed by electronic products, computers, and componentswith an export value of 27.4 billion USD.

The ministry said that the electronics industry would continue to grow in theremaining months of this year, driven by the increase in demand forcommunication products. A number of companies that produce computer andelectronics products in other countries had been forced to close down due tothe impacts of the virus.

The ministry predicted that the export value of computers, electroniccomponents and other products of Vietnam would hit 50 billion USD this year,representing a rise of 13.5 percent against 2020.

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Agency’s ExportPromotion Centre, said that the Vietnamese economy continued to see significantchanges in the structure of export products. From a country with agriculturalproducts and labour-intensive products being the main exports, Vietnam wasgradually transitioning to producing more high-tech export products with higheradded value such as electronics and electronic components.

The ministry said that Vietnam's electronics products were exported to morethan 100 countries including China, ASEAN, Japan and the Republic of Korea andwere expanding their presence in EU markets.

In the first quarter of this year, Vietnam granted licences for capitalincreases for a number of electronic products, including the Republic of Korea'sLG Display Hai Phong and Singapore's Fukang Technology./.