Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the second half of March, 2019

The Vietnam Customs Statistics announced that in the second half of March, 2019 the total Vietnam’s exports of US dollars 11.75 billion and imports of nearly US dollars 10.68 billion resulted in a trade surplus of US dollars 1.08 billion. Accordingly, the total value of export and import turnover of  Vietnam in the second half of March was over US dollars 22.43 billion, up by 5.3% as compared to the first half of March-2019.  Furthermore, in the first 3 months of 2019, Vietnam was in trade surplus of USD 1.08 billion.

Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods in the first 3 months of 2019 totaled US dollars 116.31 billion in value terms, climbed up  by 6.6% as compared to the performance of the same period of last year.

In the view of Foreign Direct Invested (FDI) traders, the total value of exportation and importation in the first 3 months of 2019 reached USD 74.54 billion, up by 3.8% in comparison to the same period of 2018.

Export:

As compared to the first half of March-2019, second half of the month increase in the total export value (7.3% - USD 801 million equally) is reflected by upturn in computer, electrical products (up by 9.7% - USD 131 million equally); machine, tools and equipments (up by 14.1% - USD 97 million equally); foot-wear (up by 14.3% - USD 87 million equally);  vegetables and fruits (up by 48.4% - USD 71 million)…

Totally, in the first 3 months of 2019 total export value from Vietnam was USD 58.86 billion, climbed up 5.3% as compared to the same period of 2018 (equivalent to USD 2.96 billion in absolute value terms).

Chart 1: Top 10 main exported commodities of  first 3 months of 2019 over the same period of 2018

 

 

Source: Vietnam Customs

Import:

The first half to second half of March widen in the total of import value (3.2%) reflected upturn in machine, equipment tools and instruments (up by 11.4% - USD 164 million equally); fabrics (up by 24.8% - USD 119 million equally);  telephones, mobile phones and part thereof (up by 26.3% - USD 112 million equally); Motor vehicles (up by 63% - USD 75 million equally)…

From January to second half of March-2019, total import value into Vietnam was USD 57.45 billion, went up by 8%  as compared to the same period of 2018 (equivalent to USD 4.23 billion in absolute value terms).

Chart 2: Top 10 main imported commodities of first 3 months of 2019 over the same period of 2018

 

Source: Vietnam Customs