Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 5 months of 2019

​2. In the first 5 months of 2019, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 202.68 billion in value terms, 8.8% above the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of a year earlier, total merchandise exports value rose 7.1%, to US dollars 101.12 billion and the total merchandise imports value grew up 10.6% to US dollars 101.55 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in this period was in the deficit of US dollars 434 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 128.19 billion in total from beginning to May 2019, up by 6.6% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2018. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 70.07 billion, went up by 5.6%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 58.12 billion, went up by 7.8%.

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 390 million); computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by USD 345 million); foot-wears (up by USD 263 million); …

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 6.7 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by USD 1.45 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 1.26 billion); foot-wears (up by USD 864 million); …

6. On month-on-month basis, a growth in total merchandise imports was due to the upturns of the commodities as follows: computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 341 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 274 million); cashew nut (up by USD 169 million); …

7. On year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 9.77 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 3.26 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 1.98 billion); crude oil (up by USD 1.35 billion); …

Trading Partners

8. In the first 5 months of 2019, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 133.68 billion in value terms, which moved up 7.5% as compared to the same period of 2018. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 36.29 billion and increased by 22.2%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 26.23 billion, up by 1.6%; Oceania: USD 3.91 billion, up by 9.1% and Africa: USD 2.57 billion, down by 5.0% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-May period of 2019, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 7 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 22.7 billion); China (reached USD 13.6 billion); Japan (reached USD 7.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 7.7 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 29.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 19.1 billion); Japan (reached USD 7.4 billion).