In Early 2019, Vietnam Sees A Trade Deficit of Nearly US$ 1 Billion

The first figures on import and export activities in 2019 have just been released by the General Department of Customs. Accordingly, in the first half of January, 2019, the country’s total export value reached US$ 9.2 billion, a slight decrease of US$ 71 million over the same period in 2018. Meanwhile imports reached nearly US$ 10.2 billion, a year-on-year strong increase of US$ 646 million.

Thus, contrary to the trade surplus of nearly US$ 6.8 billion in 2018, the first 15 days of the new year 2019, our country suffered a deficit of nearly US$ 1 billion.

However, the last 15 day period is approaching the Lunar New Year, so reduction in export and increase in import is understandable because at this time, production and export activities are affected by Tet holidays while the demand for imported goods will increase.

In the first 15 days of the year, there were 3 export commodity groups reaching a turnover of US$ 1 billion or more, including: Garments and Textile; Phones components; and Computers, electronic products and components.

The number of commodity groups does not increase compared to 2018, but notably, the phones and components showed a strong decrease in turnover.

Specifically, the export turnover of this commodity only reached US$ 1.293 billion, while it was more than US$ 2.1 billion in the same period last year. Thus, this group has dropped over US$ 800 million, equivalent to more than 39% of turnover. This mainly caused the reduction in the country’s export turnover.

In addition, computers, electronic products and components also suffered a slight decrease of nearly US$ 50 million.

Among the 3 main export commodity groups, only Garments and textiles achieved turnover growth totalling US$ 1.245 billion, up nearly 13%, equivalent to nearly US$ 150 million.

In 2018, the above commodity groups were also the largest export commodity groups of our country.

Specifically, all kinds of phones and components continued to be the largest export group in 2018 with a value of US $49.08 billion, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2017.

China continues to be the leading import market of phones and components from Vietnam in 2018 with a turnover of 9.38 billion USD, up 31.1% in comparison to 2017. Next is the US market with a turnover of nearly 5.41 billion USD, an increase of 46.1%.

Textiles and garments reached US$ 30.49 billion, up 16.7%, ranking second.

In particular, textile and garment export turnover to the US market reached US$ 13.7 billion, up 11.6%; the European Union (EU) reached US$ 4.16 billion, up 9.9%; Japan reached US$ 3.81 billion, up 22.6%; South Korea reached US$ 3.3 billion, up 24.9%; China reached US$ 1.5 billion USD, a strong increase of 39.6% over the previous year, equivalent to an increase of US$ 437 million in specific numbers.

Computers and electronic products and components gained US$ 29.32 billion, up 12.9%, ranking third.

The main export markets are China with US$ 8.36 billion, up by 21.9%; the EU with US$ 5.47 billion, up 18.6%; the United States with US$ 2.86 billion, down 16.7% ...

The country’s total import and export turnover in 2018 reached US$ 480.17 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.2% (equivalent to US$ 52.05 billion). Of which, export value was US$ 243.48 billion, up by 13.2% and import reached US$ 236.69 billion, up by 11.1%. Our country had a trade surplus of nearly US$ 6.8 billion.

 

By Thai Binh/ Huyen Trang (Source: VCN)