Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 2 months of 2019

Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 2 months of 2019

Highlights

1.  According to trade statistics of Vietnam Customs, in February 2019, a 34.1% downwards in total external merchandise turnover of Vietnam was recorded on month-on-month basis. Exports shrunk 37.0 %, to USD 13.91 billion and imports remarkably went down 31%, to USD 14.67 billion as compared to the result of January 2019. As a result, there was a USD 768 million deficit in Vietnam’s trade balance in this month.

2. From the beginning to February of 2019, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 72.29 billion in value terms, 5.0% above the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of a year earlier, total merchandise exports value rose 4.2%, to US dollars 36.11 billion and the total merchandise imports value increased 5.8% to US dollars 36.18 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in the first 2 months of 2019 was in the deficit of US dollars 64 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 46.14 billion in total from beginning to February 2019, up by  2.6% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2018. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 24.95 billion, went up by 1.7%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 21.19 billion, went up by 3.7%.

Main Exports and Imports                        

4. On month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by USD 1.99 billion); foot-wears (down by USD 915 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (down by USD 686 million)…

5. On year-on-year basis, exports expanded USD 1.46 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were textiles and garments (up by USD 488 million); foot-wears (up by USD 371 million); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 290 million); …

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 1.32 billion); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 601 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (down by USD 492 million); …

7. On year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 1.97 billion. The growth in imports was mainly contributed by the upturns of the following products: machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 667 million); crude oil (up by USD 594 million); computers, electrical products, spare-parts and components thereof (up by USD 570 million)… 

Trading Partners

8. In the first 2 months of 2019, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 47.65 billion in value terms, which moved up 1.9% as compared to the same period of 2018. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 12.8 billion and increased by 22%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 9.70 billion, up by 3.2%; Oceania: USD 1.32 billion, up by 5.6% and Africa: USD 0.83 billion, down by 14.1% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-February period of 2019, 7 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 1 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 8.2 billion); China (reached USD 4.7 billion); Japan (reached USD 2.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 2.9 billion); Hong Kong (reached USD 1.0 billion); Netherlands (reached USD 1.0 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 9.9 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 7.3 billion); Japan (reached USD 2.8 billion).