Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 2 months of 2018

2. From the beginning to February of 2018, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 68.51 billion in value terms, 23.3% above the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of a year earlier, total merchandise exports value rose 26.1%, to US dollars 31.51 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 20.5% to US dollars 34 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 2 months of 2018 was in the surplus of US dollars 504 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 44.78 billion in total from beginning to February 2018, up by 24.4% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2017. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 24.53 billion, went up by 27.7%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 20.25 billion, went up by 20.7%.

4. On month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by USD 861 million); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 650 million); foot-wears (down by USD 580 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (down by USD 535 million)…

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 7.15 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 2.65 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 756 million); textiles and garments (up by USD 606 million).5

6.On month-on-month basis, a reduction in total merchandise imports was due to the downturns of the commodities as follows: machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 944 million); were telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (down by USD 811 million); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 668 million)…

Trading Partners

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 5.78 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 1.96 billion); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 533 million); petroleum products (up by USD 459 million)…

8. In the first 2 months of 2018, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 46.51 billion in value terms, which moved up 25.5% as compared to the same period of 2017. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 10.42 billion and increased by 15.1%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 9.38 billion, up by 21.5%; Oceania: USD 1.23 billion, up by 29.6% and Africa: USD 0.96 billion, up by 23.7% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-February period of 2018, 7 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 1 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 6.0 billion); China (reached USD 5.7 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 2.8 billion); Japan (reached USD 2.7 billion); Hong Kong (reached USD 1.2 billion); Netherlands (reached USD 1.1 billion) and Germany (reached USD 1.0 billion).

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 9.2 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 7.5 billion); Japan (reached USD 2.7 billion).