Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in September and the 9 months of 2016

2. In the 9 months (January-September) of 2016, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods reached US dollars 253.44 billion in total value, 3.9% above the corresponding period of 2015. As compared to result of the January-September period of 2015, total merchandise exports value was up 7.0% to US dollars 128.58 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 0.9% to US dollars 124.86 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the 9 months of 2016 was in the surplus of US dollars 2.72 billion.

3. Trade data disseminated recently by Vietnam Customs reported that the total value of exportation and importation by foreign direct invested (FDI) traders reached US dollars 163.75 billion in total in January-September period of 2016, up by 5.5% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2015. Total value of FDI exportation was US dollars 89.93 billion, went up by 9.8%. On import side, the total value of those companies was US dollars 73.82 billion, went up by 0.6%.

Main Exports and Imports

4. The August of 2016 to September of 2016 decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by US dollars 309 million); foot-wears (down by US dollars 219 million); wood and wooden products (down by US dollars 47 million)...

5. The commodities, of which the upwards resulted in significant expansion in total exports value in the 9 months of 2016 as compared to that of 2015, were as follows: telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by US dollars 2.5 billion); computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by US dollars 1.6 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by US dollars 1.5 billion);…

6. The August of 2016 to September of 2016 reduction in total merchandise imports was due to the downwards in machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by US dollars 201 million); computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by US dollars 159 million);...

7. From the beginning to September of 2016, Vietnam Customs Statistics recorded an increase in value terms of some imported commodities, which led to the upturns in total as compared to performance of the corresponding period in 2015. They were as follows: computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by US dollars 2.79 billion); plastic products (up by US dollars 432 million); plastic other base metal (up by US dollars 463 million)…

Trading Partners

8. In Jan-September period, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled US dollars 162.93 billion in value terms, which moved up 1.8% as compared to the same period of 2015. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached US dollars 44.93 billion and increased by 9.1%. The values of other continents were Europe: US dollars 37.09 billion, up by 8.5%; Oceania: US dollars 4.49 billion, up by 1.1% and Africa: US dollars 3.99 billion, down by 3.1% in comparison with the same period of prior year.

9. From the beginning to September of 2016, 4 exporting markets of Vietnam with turnover of over US dollars 8 billion were The United States of America (reached US dollars 28.3 billion); China (reached US dollars 12.1 billion), Japan (reached US dollars 10.7 billion) and Republic of Korea (reached US dollars 8.4 billion).

10. On import side, there were four partners exporting goods to Vietnam with turnover of over US dollars 8 billion in Jan-September period. They were as follows: China (reached US dollars 35.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached US dollars 23.0 billion); Japan (reached US dollars 10.9 billion); Taiwan (reached US dollars 8.2 billion).