Import- Export: the milestone of US $400 billion counted down in a few days

Export-import activities at Tan Vu port, Hai Phong. Picture: T.Bình.

Reached more than US $1 billion a day

According to the latest preliminary statistics of the General Department of Customs, the total value of export turnover of the whole country reached US $194.47 billion by the end of November, while the value of import turnover reached US $191.296 billion.

Thus, the total value of import and export turnover of the country has reached US $385.766 billion. Remarkably, our country still maintained a surplus of US $3.174 billion, far surpassing previous estimates of experts (estimated at US $2.76 billion by November). On average, since the beginning of the year, Vietnam has attained more than US $1 billion of imports and exports.

With an average import-export value of more than US $35 billion a month over the past 11 months, our country will set a record US $400 billion of export-import turnover will be counted down in days. This is the basis when the import-export turnover in the last months of the year has always been higher, and in fact in the last 2 months (October and November, the total import turnover of the country is always at US $40 billion per month).

Meanwhile, to reach the mark of US $400 billion, our country only needs US $14.234 billion, meaning it will reach the target in the first half of this December. It is estimated that the time for reaching the US $400 billion mark will be in the second half of next week or early in the fourth week of November.

Thus, after 10 years since Vietnam has established a milestone of US $100 billion (at the end of 2007), the country's import and export turnover has increased four times.

It is known that the General Department of Customs is also closely monitoring the evolution of import-export activities to timely release this important economic information.

It can be said that after 2016, the import and export activities of the whole country have really prospered in 2017 when both export and import growth rate exceeded the same period in 2016 and reached a double digit growth. Of which, the export turnover by the end of November increased by 21.5% (while 2016 only increased by 9%) and imports increased by 21.2% (while 2016 only increased by 5.6%).

The milestone of "hundred billion USD" in our country's import-export activities. Chart: T.Binh

Far exceeding the targets.

Notably, the index of export growth, trade deficit of our country also exceeds the number assigned previously by the National Assembly.

Specifically, in 2017, the National Assembly decided that the total export turnover of the country increased by 6% to 7%, and the trade deficit was equal to 3.5% of total import-export turnover.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly reported at its fourth session, the Government estimated that the total export value in the whole year increased by 14.4%, while the trade deficit was 1.5% of the total import-export turnover.

However, the latest statistics by the General Department of Customs show that both targets (exports and trade deficit) exceed the figures approved by the National Assembly and the government estimates.

In particular, the export growth rate was 14.5 percentage points higher than the highest target approved by the National Assembly (7%) and also 7.1 percentage points higher than the yearly estimates of the Government.

Meanwhile, the trade balance was more positive when Vietnam not only avoided the trade deficit but also reached trade surplus with the large amount of US $3.174 billion.