Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 9 months of 2018

2. From the beginning to September of 2018, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 352.61 billion in value terms, 13.7% above the corresponding period of last year. On a year-on-year basis, total merchandise exports value rose 15.8%, to US dollars 179.47 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 11.6% to US dollars 173.14 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 8 months of 2018 was in the surplus of US dollars 6.32 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 230.43 billion in total from beginning to September 2018, up by 13.8% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2017. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 126.63 billion, %. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 103.80 billion, went up by 11.5%.

Main Exp​​orts and Imports

4. On a month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by USD 461 million); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 258 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 240 million)…

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 24.44 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 5.16 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 3.18 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 3.03 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 2.73 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 (down USD 465 million); crude oil (down by USD 387 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (down by USD 193 million);…

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 18 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 3.52 billion); other base metals (up by USD 1.36 billion); petroleum products (up by USD 1.22 billion); crude oil (up by USD 1.15 million) …

Trading Partners

8. In the first 9 months of 2018, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 234.65 billion in value terms, which moved up 14.2% as compared to the same period of 2017. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 58.07 billion and increased by 14.3%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 47.50 billion, up by 11.2%; Oceania: USD 6.85 billion, up by 19.0% and Africa: USD 5.55 billion, up by 2.3% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-September period of 2018, 4 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 13 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 35 billion); China (reached USD 28.8 billion); Japan (reached USD 13.7 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 13.4 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 47.3 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 35.1 billion); Japan (reached USD 13.9 billion).