Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 10 months of 2018

​2. From the beginning to October of 2018, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 396.85 billion in value terms, 13.8% above the corresponding period of last year. On a year-on-year basis, total merchandise exports value rose 15.2%, to US dollars 202.03 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 12.4% to US dollars 194.82 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 10 months of 2018 was in the surplus of US dollars 7.21 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 259.79 billion in total from beginning to October 2018, up by 13.7% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2017. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 142.80 billion, went up by 14.9 %. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 116.99 billion, went up by 12.3%.

Main Exports and Imports

4. On a month-on-month basis, an increase in total merchandise exports was due to the upturns in textiles and garments (up by USD 213 million);computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 198 million); other means of transportation, parts and accessories thereof (up by USD 173 million)…

5.On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 26.67 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 4.65 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 3.68 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 3.33 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 3.12 billion)...

6.On a month-on-month basis, a reduction in total merchandise imports value was due to the downturns of the commodities as follows: computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 342 million); crude oil (up by USD 319 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 275 million);…

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 21.45 billion. The growth in imports was mainly contributed by the upwards of the following products: computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 4.13 billion); crude oil (up by USD 1.62 billion); other base metals (up by USD 1.44 billion); fabrics (up by USD 1.30 million) …

Trading Partners

8. In the first 10 months of 2018, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 264.90 billion in value terms, which moved up 14.3% as compared to the same period of 2017. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 65.12 billion and increased by 14.8%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 53.08 billion, up by 11%; Oceania: USD 7.68 billion, up by 18.9% and Africa: USD 6.07 billion, up by 3.1% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-October period of 2018, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 15 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 39.4 billion); China (reached USD 33.5 billion); Japan (reached USD 15.5 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 15.2 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 53.4 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 39.2 billion); Japan (reached USD 15.7 billion).