Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first 9 months of 2019

Highlights

1.  According to trade statistics of Vietnam Customs, in September 2019, a 6.7% reduction in total external merchandise turnover of Vietnam was recorded on a month-on-month basis. Exports went down 9.8 %, to USD 23.36 billion and imports shrunk 3.1%, to USD 21.75 billion as compared to the result of August 2019. As a result, there was a USD 1.61 billion surplus in Vietnam’s trade balance in this month.

2. In the first 9 months of 2019, Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods totaled US dollars 382.16 billion in value terms, 8.4% above the corresponding period of last year. As compared to result of a year earlier, total merchandise exports value rose 8.4%; to US dollars 194.65 billion and the total merchandise imports value grew up 8.4% to US dollars 187.50 billion. Accordingly, Vietnam’s trade balance in this period was in the surplus of US dollars 7.15 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 242.28 billion in total from beginning to September 2019, up by 5.1% as compared to the result of corresponding period of 2018. Total value of FDI exportation was USD 133.42 billion, went up by 5.3%. On import side, the total value of those companies was USD 108.85 billion, went up by 4.9%.

Main Exports and Imports                        

4. On a month-on-month basis, a decrease in total merchandise exports was due to the downturns in textiles and garments (down by USD 526 million); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (down by USD 479 million); machine, precious stones, precious metal and articles thereof (down by USD 258 million); …

5. On a year-on-year basis, exports grew up USD 15.10 billion. The main products, which contributed to the increase, were computers, electrical products and parts thereof (up by USD 3.85 billion); textiles and garments (up by USD 2.17 billion); telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (up by USD 2.11 billion); …

6. On a mont​h-on-month basis, a reduction in total merchandise imports was due to the downturns of the commodities as follows: machines, equipments, tools and instruments (down by USD 242 million); computers, electrical products and spare-parts and components thereof (down by USD 230 million); petroleum products (down by USD 146 million); …

7. On a year-on-year basis, imports went up USD 14.45 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 6.83 billion); machine, equipment, tools and instruments (up by USD 2.94 billion); crude oil (up by USD 1.53 billion); … 

Trading Partners

8. In the first 9 months of 2019, Vietnamese merchandise trade with trading partners in Asia was totaled USD 249.71 billion in value terms, which moved up 6.4% as compared to the same period of 2018. Trade-in-goods of Vietnam with America was followed, which reached USD 70.72 billion and increased by 21.9%. The values of other continents were Europe: USD 49.19 billion, up by 3.6%; Oceania: USD 7.16 billion, up by 5.7% and Africa: USD 5.38 billion, down by 2.7% in comparison with the same period of last year.

9. For January-September period of 2019, 3 importing markets of Vietnam with turnover of over USD 15 billion were: The United States of America (reached USD 44.7 billion); China (reached USD 28.2 billion); Japan (reached USD 15.0 billion).

 

10. According to the following chart, top 3 big sources of Vietnam’s imports were as follows: China (reached USD 55.4 billion); Republic of Korea (reached USD 35.3 billion); Japan (reached USD 14.2 billion).