Vietnam spent nearly $1.4 billion importing cloth from China last year, posting a year-on- year rise of 51.8 percent, local newspaper Vietnam Economic Times reported Friday.

Last year, Vietnam spent $817.6 million and $730.3 million importing cloth from South Korea and China's Taiwan Province, respectively, the newspaper quoted statistics from the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade as reporting. It also imported more cloth from France, Turkey, Latvia and Sweden.

Vietnam's total cloth import turnovers were roughly $4 billion in 2007, up 33.6 percent against 2006.