Vietnam reported a $733 million trade deficit in the first seven months of 2013, said the General Statistics Office on Thursday.

Accordingly, during the seven month period, Vietnam pocketed 72. 74 billion US dollars from exports, an increase of 14.3 percent year-on-year, while spending 73.47 billion US dollars for imports, up 15 percent.

In July alone, the country saw a trade surplus of 200 million U. S. dollars, with import turnover reached 11 billion US dollars and export turnover was 11.2 million US dollars.

The sector of foreign invested enterprises posted a higher trade surplus than other sectors, staying at 1.2 billion US dollars in July and 6.91 billion US dollars in January-July period.

Commodities with high export turnover during the period include mobile phones and accessories with 11.63 billion US dollars, garment and textile 9.64 billion US dollars, crude oil 4.28 billion US dollars and footwear 4.79 US dollars.

According to the updated statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in the first half of 2013, Vietnam hit a trade deficit of 933 million US dollars after earning 61.539 billion dollars from exports and disbursing 62.472 billion dollars for imports.