Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 10 months of 2017

2. From the beginning to October of 2017, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 346.54 billion in value terms, 21.5% above the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of the first 10 months of 2016, total merchandise exports value rose 21.3%, to US dollars 174.55 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 21.6% to US dollars 171.99 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in January-October period of 2017 was in the surplus of US dollars 2.56 billion. 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 227.14 billion in total from beginning to October 2017, up by 23.2 % as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2016. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 124.04 billion, went up by 23%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 103.1 billion, went up by 23.5%.

Main Exports and Imports

4. On month-on-month basis, an increase in total merchandise exports was due to the upturns in telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 405 million); other means of transportation, parts and accessories thereof (up by USD 154 million); foot-wears (up by USD 140 million); computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by USD 118 million); machine, equipment, tools and instrument (up by USD 57 million); … A decrease occurred in exportation of some commodities such as: textiles and garments (down by USD 151 million); rubbers (down by USD 62 million); fruits and vegetables (down by USD 40 million);…

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 30.6 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 8.43 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 5.95 billion); machine, equipments, tools and instruments (up by USD 2.35 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 1.77 million). 6. On month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise imports was due to the downturns of the commodities as follows: computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 476 million); machine, equipments, tools and instruments (down by USD 110 million)… An upward occurred in importation of some commodities such as: iron and steel (up by USD 118 million); petroleum products (up by USD 102 million); …

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 30.6 billion. The growth in imports was mainly contributed by the upturns of the following products: computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 7.7 billion); machine, equipments, tools and instruments (up by USD 5.2 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 4.2 million)…

Trading Partners

8. In the first 10 months of 2017, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled nearly USD 230 billion in value terms, which moved up 25.3% as compared to the same period of 2016. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 56.43 billion and increased by 11.8%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 47.78 billion, up by 14.9%; Oceania: USD 6.39 billion, up by 25.1% and Africa: USD 5.87 billion, up by 30.4% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-October period of 2017, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 12 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 34.5 billion); China (reached USD 26.5 billion); Japan (reached USD 13.8 billion) and Republic of Korea (reached USD 12.2 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 46.8 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 38.3 billion); Japan (reached USD 13.3 billion).