Vietnam's national index of industrial production advanced 5.28 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, the country's General Statistics Office announced on Friday.
The main driver of the surge, the processing and manufacturing sector, went up 7.12 per cent from the same period of last year, contributing 1.64 percentage points to the overall growth, reports Xinhua.
Electricity production and distribution sector grew 7.46 per cent, contributing 0.41 percentage points, and water supply and waste management grew 6.67 per cent, contributing 0.05 percentage points.
Production of phone components witnessed the largest output expansion year-on-year of 34.7 per cent, followed by petroleum and oil, monosodium glutamate and fabrics, which increased by 17.4 per cent, 12.3 per cent and 11.3 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, outputs of beer went down 18.9 per cent and refined sugar down 17 per cent.
As of March 1, the total number of employees in the industrial sector rose 1.4 per cent on-year. Employment in the processing and manufacturing businesses and electricity production and distribution ones went up 1.6 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively, said the office.