Vietnam’s trade turnover exceeds US$600 billion mark by mid-October

Recently released data by the General Statistics Office (GSO) indicates that in the first half of October, the export turnover hit US$16.15 billion.

There were four export commodity groups with turnover exceeding US$1 billion each, including computers, electronic products and components; phones and components; machinery, tools, spare parts; and textiles.

Furthermore, other commodity groups that brought back hundreds of millions of US dollars each included footwear, seafood, vegetables, means of transport and spare parts, and iron and steel.

In total, Vietnam recorded US$315.9 billion in export earnings from beginning of the year to mid-October.

Conversely, the import turnover of goods during the first half of October reached US$15.78 billion, raising the country’s total import turnover by October 15 to US$294.66 billion.

As a result, the country’s total import-export turnover hit US$610.56 billion by October 15, leading a trade surplus of US$21.24 billion.

Vu Ba Phu, director of the Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), attributed the positive results to the flexible and innovative trade promotion campaigns which have been carried out in recent times, combining traditional and modern trade promotion, associated with e-commerce and the digital economy.

Since the beginning of the year, numerous ministries, localities, and enterprises have boosted trade promotion activities in order to better take advantage of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as a way of diversifying both markets and supply chains.

However, Phu added, that trade counselors and business representatives in foreign countries also shared challenges and concerns as many key markets such as the United States and the EU have sharply increased trade defence measures.

Therefore, to increase the general efficiency of import and export, the official said the MoIT will continue to support enterprises in effectively exploiting the FTAs that have come into effect, and implementing new agreements to expand and diversify markets, import and export products, and supply chains.

The MoIT will also help enterprises to strengthen the exploitation of neighbouring markets and strongly shift to official exports associated with brand building, while also promoting sustainable exports.

Furthermore, the MoIT will continue to innovate and improve the effectiveness of trade promotion, and step up the completion of the legal system in a bid to strengthen the trade defence regime towards protecting the domestic economy, businesses, and market in accordance with international commitments.

It will also continue to improve the effective use of trade defence tools to protect domestic production and effectively support Vietnamese export industries in responding to foreign trade defence cases.