Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 5 months of 2020

2. In the first 5 months of 2020, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 196.89 billion in value terms, 2.8% below the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of a year earlier, total merchandise exports value decreased 0.9% to USD [T2] 100.21 billion and the total merchandise imports value down 4.6% to US dollars 96.67 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first five months of 2020 was in the surplus of US dollars 3.54 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 120.17 billion in total for the first 5 months of 2020, down by 6.2 % on year-on-year basis. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 65.55 billion, decreased by 6.5%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 54.62 billion, down by 5.9% compared with the previous year.

Main Exports and Imports

4. The April of 2020 to May of 2020 increased in total merchandise exports was due to the upwards in telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 428 million); textiles and garments (up by USD 257 million); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 360 million);...

5. The decrease of Vietnam‘s total merchandise exports in[T3] the first 5 months of 2020 was due to the downwards [T4] in textiles and garments (down by USD 1.66 billion), telephones, mobile [T5] phones and parts thereof (down by USD 1.41 billion); foot-wears (down by USD 409 million);

6. The April of 2020 to May of 2020 decrease in total merchandise imports was due to the downwards of machine, equipments, tools and instruments (down by USD 398 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 34 million);…

7. On year-on-year basis, imports went down by 4.6%, to USD 96.67 billion[T6] . The decrease in imports was mainly contributed by the following products: crude oil (down by USD 1.13 billion); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 480 million); machine, equipment, tools and entrustment (down by USD 935 million); motor vehicles (down by USD 616 million);

Trading Partners

8. In the first 5 months of 2020, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 126.42 billion in value terms, which moved down 4.4% as compared to the same period of 2019. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America reached USD 38.56 billion and increased by 6.5%.[T7] The values of other continents were Europe: USD 24.35 billion, down by 7%; Oceania: USD 3.91 billion, up by 1.9% and Africa: USD 2.38 billion, down by 7.5% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9.For the first 5 months of 2020, 4 exporting markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 4 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 25.11 billion, up by 10.6%); China (reached USD 15.9 billion, up by 17.7%); Japan (reached USD 7.8 billion, down by 0.5%) and Republic of Korea (reached USD 7.7 billion, down by 1.1%)) as compared to the same period of last year.

10.On import side, four partners exporting goods to Vietnam with turnover of over 4 billion were as follows: China (reached USD 28.3 billion, down by 4.7% ); Republic of Korea (reached USD 7.77 billion, up by 5.7%); Japan (reached USD 17.31 billion, down by 9.3% ) as compared to the same period of last year.