Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 6 months of 2018

2. From the beginning to June of 2018, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 225.016 billion in value terms, 12.9% above the corresponding period of last year. On year-on-year basis, total merchandise exports value rose 16.3%, to US dollars 114.189 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 9.6% to US dollars 110.826 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first half of 2018 was in the surplus of US dollars 3.36 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 144.83 billion in total from beginning to June 2018, up by 11.9% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2017. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 79.96 billion, went up by 15.7 %. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 64.87 billion, went up by 7.5%.

Main Exports and Imports

4. On month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in rice (down by USD 110 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 99 million); other means of transportation, parts and accessories thereof (down by USD 98 million)…

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 15.98 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 3.13 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 1.89 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 1.86 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 1.81 billion)...

6. On month-on-month basis, a downward 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 279 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 259 million); fabrics (down by USD 217 million); …

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 9.74 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 2.53 billion); petroleum products (up by USD 1.34 billion); fabrics (up by USD 781 million); plastics (up by USD 702 million) …

Trading Partners

8. In the first half of 2018, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 149.79 billion in value terms, which moved up 13.7% as compared to the same period of 2017. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 36.21 billion and increased by 9.7%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 31.24 billion, up by 13.6%; Oceania: USD 4.37 billion, up by 18.9% and Africa: USD 3.41 billion, up by 2% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-June period of 2018, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 8 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 21.6 billion); China (reached USD 16.6 billion); Japan (reached USD 8.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 8.7 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 30.2 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 22.6 billion); Japan (reached USD 8.9 billion).