Vietnam's trade deficit hit 800 million U.S. dollars in August, as its export turnover reached 8.3 billion U.S. dollars while import turnover expanded to 9.1 billion U.S. dollars, the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) reported on Wednesday.

According to GSO, the deficit is attributed to a sharp drop in the export of precious metals and gemstones in August, down by 82 percent to around 200 million U.S. dollars.

In addition, the export of several key items declined in August, causing the deficit worst. Only textiles and garments earned a turnover of more than one billion U.S. dollars, while crude oil and seafood pocketed about 750 million U.S. dollars and 590 million U.S. dollars respectively.

Meanwhile, the main imports in August included petrol, worth 967 million U.S. dollars, cloth with 540 million U.S. dollars, and electronic products and computers with 600 million U.S. dollars.

August deficit pushed the country's deficit in the first eight months to 6.22 billion U.S. dollars, equal to 10.23 percent of the total export turnover.

During the period, the country earned 60.8 billion U.S. dollars from the exports, up 33.7 percent, while spending 67.02 billion U. S. dollars for the imports, up 25.4 percent, year-on-year.