Total imports of US$78.08 billion, 29% from China products

	Automobile imports increases sharply, policy on localization loses advantages
	Merging two circulars providing customs value of imports and exports
	Vietnam’s crude oil imports increase sharply by more than 1.5 million tonnes

Chart by: T.B

Imports from Asia comprised 80.1% of total import and export turnover

In terms of import turnover, Asia is considered to be the biggest trade partner of Vietnam, according to the latest statistics released by the General Department of Customs.

Vietnam-Asia bilateral trade in the first fourmonths reached by $103.61 billion, a slight decrease of 0.4% year on year, but still accounted for 65.2% of total import and export turnover.

Inspite of the significant decline in most of major markets, imports from Asia comprised 80.1% of total import and export turnover.

In particular, export value is $41.03 billion, up by 1.5% and import value is $62.58 billion, down by 1.7%. Some key markets such as China reached by$22.38 billion, down 1.6% over the same period last year and 28.7% of the country's import turnover.

Japan was down 4.6 percent in volume to $14.42 billion, accounting for 18.5% of the import's turnover; meanwhile ASEAN countries was down sharply to 11.2%, 12.2% of import turnover.

Remarkably, import’s turnover from Korea ran a surplus of a positive and fairly high double-digit growth.

Specifically, in the first fourmonths, the country spent $6.48 billion on importing goods from this eastAsian country, up 11.8% over the same period in 2019 and accounting for 8.3% of total import turnover. In addition, import turnover from the US or EU also increased significantly, touching $4.76 billion, a 10.5% increase and $4.81 billion, a 9.2% increase, respectively.

Computer imports increased by billions USD

Due to the Covid – 19 pandemic, there was a sharp decline in the country’s import value, andmany groups only grew slowly or even dropped to negative value. However, computers, electronic products and components showed the contrast trends with the import turnover of billions of dollarsand are considered the main import products of Vietnam. Particularly, in the first fourmonths of 2020, this group achieved an impressive 17.6 billion USD rise in import’s turnover, an 11.5% (about $1.81 billion) increase year on year.

Especially, FDI enterprise’s import value rose by 14.7 percent year on year to $14.7 billion which is equivalent to 84% of total import value of computers, electronic products and components.

Korea continued to be the largest importer of computers, electronic products and components from Vietnam with $5.44 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6.1 percent, followed by China, Taiwanand America with $3.9 billion (down 1%), $2.04 billion (up sharply by 33.4%),$1.55 billion (up 14,8%), respectively.

Some other import items saw remarkable growth such as: Crude oil increased by $440 million mobile phones and accessories increased by $256 million.

However, the General Department of Customs also emphasized that many key import groups saw a decrease in turnover of up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The group with the largest decrease in turnover was petroleum with total import volume of petroleum of 2.4 million tonnes, down 22.7%, valued at $1.12 billion, down to 41.7% (equivalent to $800 million) compared to the same period last year.

In the first months of the year, Vietnam imported mainly petroleum from South Korea with 598 thousand tonnes, down 8.5%;Malaysia with 532 thousand tonnes, down 40.7% and Singapore with 498 thousand tonnes, down 35.2%.

CBU cars also fell sharply with the output of only 31,586 units, down 36.2% and the turnover reached $689.3 million, a decrease of $430 million (equivalent to a decrease of 38.4%).

In addition, all kinds of iron and steel decreased by $405 million;machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts decreased by $290 million.

Remarkably, commodity groups with a sharp decrease in import turnover are those with large contributions to Customs revenue.