In particular, the number of mainland Chinese tourists has more than doubled compared to January 2024, narrowing the gap with its pre- pandemic high from 36% in 2024 to only 10% in January 2025.
The report outlined that Lunar New Year festival (Tet) arrived not only early this year, in January, but also brought a nine-day holiday, two days more than last year. Therefore, this affected monthly data readings as workers headed back home to celebrate the holiday.
Not surprisingly, retail sales rose 10% on-year, with both goods and services posting strong year-on-year growth. That said, the consumption trend suggests that Vietnamese consumer spending has more room to recover, as retail sales were still 8% below what trend growth would suggest.
Meanwhile, on the external side, January trade data came in weak as factories closed for the holiday, at first glance. That said, after accounting for the Tết distortions, an export decline of 4.3% on-year in January is rather moderate.
Economists pointed out that one interesting observation is the ongoing divergence in electronics shipments. For the past months, phone exports were main drags, but computer electronics shipments were a strong boost to export growth. Similarly, this is also the trend observed in imports, as Vietnam’s manufacturing is rather import-intensive.
As imports fell 2.6% on-year, January saw a rather generous trade surplus of over US$3 billion, against an average of US$2 billion in 2024.
According to experts, despite starting 2025 on a not-so-bad footing, tariff risks nonetheless cloud trade prospects. Vietnam has the highest tariff risk in ASEAN, given its large trade surplus with the US. That said, there remains a large degree of uncertainty.
Zooming out of the tariff risks, the other question worth considering is how many companies are willing to move supply chains, which is both time and investment- consuming, given short-term factors. Vietnam’s status as a rising global production hub is not only due to geopolitical factors but also thanks to its improving fundamentals.
Meanwhile, inflation accelerated 1.0% month-on-month in January. This translated into a year-on-year print of 3.6%, exceeding market expectations (HSBC: 3.0%; Bloomberg: 3.1%).
The upside surprise was primarily driven by high food prices and medical costs (9.5% month-on-month). While it is worth keeping a close eye on inflation, experts do not think this is concerning as both factors are likely to be seasonal or one-off.
