Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 7 months of 2018

2. From the beginning to July of 2018, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 266.168 billion in value terms, 13.5% above the corresponding period of last year. On year-on-year basis, total merchandise exports value rose 16%, to US dollars 134.511 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 11.1% to US dollars 131.657 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 7 months of 2018 was in the surplus of US dollars 2.85 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 172 billion in total from beginning to July 2018, up by 13.3% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2017. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 94.2 billion, went up by 15.9%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 77.81 billion, went up by 10.4%.

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 542 million); textiles and garments (up by USD 126 million); iron and steels (up by USD 80 million)…

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 18.60 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 3.92 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 2.28 billion); electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 2.23 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 2.14 billion); computers...

6. On month-on-month basis, an expansion in total merchandise imports value was due to the upturns of the commodities as follows: other base metals (up USD 675 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 529 million); other base metal products (up by USD 311 million); electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 219 million); …

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 13.14 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 2.82 billion); petroleum products (up by USD 1.24 billion); other base metals (up by USD 1.22 million); fabrics (up by USD 932 million) …

Trading Partners

8. In the first 7 months of 2018, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 176.35 billion in value terms, which moved up 14.1% as compared to the same period of 2017. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 43.73 billion and increased by 12.4%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 36.66 billion, up by 13.2%; Oceania: USD 5.13 billion, up by 16.5% and Africa: USD 4.29 billion, up by 2.9% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-July period of 2018, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 10 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 25.8 billion); China (reached USD 20 billion); Japan (reached USD 10.4 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 10.2 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 35.7 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 26.6 billion); Japan (reached USD 10.5 billion).