Imports: total value: $11.1 billion (f.o.b., 1996 est.) commodities: machinery and equipment, petroleum products, fertilizer, steel products, raw cotton, grain, cement, motorcycles partners: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan
Debt-external: $7.3 billion Western countries; $4.5 billion CEMA debts primarily to Russia; $9 billion to $18 billion nonconvertible debt (former CEMA, Iraq, Iran)
Economic aid: recipient: ODA, $NA note: $2.4 billion in credits and grants pledged by international donors for 1997
Currency: 1 new dong (D) = 100 xu
Exchange rates: new dong (D) per US$1-12,300 (January 1998), 11,100
(December 1996), 11,193 (1995 average), 11,000 (October 1994), 10,800
(November 1993), 8,100 (July 1991)
Fiscal year: calendar year
Communications
Telephones: 800,000 (1995 est.)
Telephone system: while Vietnam's telecommunication sector lags far behind other countries in Southeast Asia, Hanoi has made considerable progress since 1991 in upgrading the system; Vietnam has digitized all provincial switch boards, while fiber-optic and microwave transmission systems have been extended from Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City to all provinces; the density of telephone receivers nationwide doubled from 1993 to 1995, but is still far behind other countries in the region; Vietnam's telecommunications strategy aims to increase telephone density to 30 per 1,000 inhabitants by the year 2000 and authorities estimate that approximately $2.7 billion will be spent on telecommunications upgrades through the end of the decade domestic: NA international: satellite earth stations-2 Intersputnik (Indian Ocean region)
Radio broadcast stations: AM NA, FM 228, shortwave 0