Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in February and the first 2 months of 2016

1.  According to trade statistics of Vietnam Customs, in the second month of 2016, a 21.5% decline in total external merchandise turnover of Vietnam was recorded as compared to the result of the first month. In which, exports went down 24.4 %, to USD 10.10 billion and imports shrunk 18.3%, to USD 10.30 billion. As a result, there was a USD 191 million deficit in Vietnam’s trade balance in this month.

2. From the beginning to February of 2016, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 46.69 billion in value terms, 1.5% below the corresponding period of 2015. As compared to result of the first two months of last year, total merchandise exports value rose 3.0%  to US dollars 23.68 billion and the total merchandise imports value decreased  5.7% to US dollars 23.01 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 2 months of 2016 was in the surplus of US dollars 676 million.

3. Trade data disseminated recently by Vietnam Customs announced that the total value of exportation and importation by foreign direct invested (FDI) traders reached USD 30.37 billion in total for the first 2 months of 2016, down by 0.01 % as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2015. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 16.60 billion, went up by 7.2%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 13.77 billion, went down by 6.4%.

  Main Exports and Imports

 4. The January of 2016 to February of 2016 decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by USD 773 million); foot-wears (down by USD 536 million); wood and wooden products (down by USD 280 million).  

5. The commodities, of which the upwards resulted in significant expansion in total exports value in the first 2 months of 2016 as compared to that of 2015, were as follows: telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 538 million); rice (up by USD 191 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 152 million)…   

6. The January of 2016 to February of 2016 decrease in total merchandise imports was due to the downwards in machine, equipment, tools and parts thereof  (down by USD 569 million); plastics (down by USD 123 million); iron and steels (down by USD 81 million)...  

7. From the beginning to February of 2016, Vietnam Customs Statistics recorded a strong growth in value terms of some imported commodities, which led to the downturns in total as compared to performance of the corresponding period in 2015. They were as follows: machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 736 million); other means of transportation, parts and accessories thereof (down by USD 447 million); iron and steel products (down by USD 321 million) …     

Trading Partners

8. In the first 2 months of 2016, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 29.96 billion in value terms, which moved down 4.5% as compared to the same period of 2015. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 8.17 billion and increased by 9.7%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 7.00 billion, down by 0.5%;  Oceania: USD 922 million, up by 12.1% and Africa: USD 641 million, down by 10.2% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. From the beginning to February of 2016, 4 exporting markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 1 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 5.0 billion); China (reached USD 2.4 billion), Japan (reached USD 2.0 billion) and Republic of Korea (reached USD 1.5 billion)

  10. On import side, there were five partners exporting goods to Vietnam with turnover of over 1billion. They were as follows: China (reached USD 6.5 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 4.2 billion); Japan (reached USD 2.0 billion); Taiwan (reached USD 1.5 billion); Thailand (reached USD 1.0 billion); United States of America (reached USD 1.0 billion).