With the recovery of the world market and increasing orders, Vietnam’s import and export activities in the first quarter of 2024 prospered and achieved positive results.
The recovery of the world economy, including many major export markets of Vietnam, is a positive sign for the Southeast Asian nation’s import and export activities in the coming time.
Tran Thanh Hai, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)’s Foreign Trade Agency, said that total export-import turnover is estimated to hit 178.04 billion USD in the first quarter of this year, up 15.5% year-on-year, resulting in a trade surplus of 8.08 billion USD. Exports performed particularly well, with an estimated value of 93.06 billion USD, representing a 17% year-on-year growth, while imports reached 84.98 billion USD, marking a 13.9% increase.
In this quarter, 16 commodities reported an export value of over 1 billion USD each, accounting for 82.1% of the total export revenue, two higher than the 14 commodities recorded in the first quarter of 2023.
The export turnover growth of the enterprises in the domestic investment sector reached 26.2%, nearly double that of the foreign investment one, including crude oil (up 13.9%), demonstrating efforts made by the domestic economic sector to maintain and expand export markets.
Meanwhile, there were 17 commodities with import turnover of over 1 billion USD each, accounting for 76.1% of the total.
Bui Huy Son, head of the MoIT’s Financing Planning Department, said that Vietnam’s macroeconomic and social stability has been maintained in the context of complex developments in geopolitics and the world economy. The Government is also trying to implement many measures to help enterprises remove difficulties and promote production and business.
However, the country’s trade activities, especially export to key markets in Europe and America, will face both challenges and opportunities this year. In addition to advantages for signed free trade agreements (FTAs), demand of the world market in general and Europe and America in particular is gradually recovering because inflation has been experiencing a downturn from the end of 2023 and is likely to approach the target level set out by central banks for 2024.
Those industrialised countries’ continued promotion of strategies to diversify sources of supply, supply chains, and investment will help Vietnam become an important production and export centre in the global value chain. Meanwhile, the development of green economy, digital transformation, and circular economy of countries in Europe and America will also open up many new cooperation opportunities as well as providing a lot of credit and technology support to Vietnam, added Huy.
Promptly responding to challenges
However, the global economy is entering a new period with numerous risks and challenges. The fact that developed countries pay more attention to issues of sustainable development, climate change response, and consumer safety continues to be the premise for establishing new, stricter standards and regulations related to the supply chain, raw materials, labour, and the environment for imported products. In addition, countries’ diversification of their supply sources will increase competition in Vietnam’s export markets.
MoIT Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan said that the sector will closely monitor market developments and changes in partners’ policies to propose appropriate solutions and develop a variety of traditional and new export markets.
“The Ministry of Industry and Trade will continue making the most of signed FTAs, speeding up negotiations and signing of new ones, diversifying markets and supply chains, developing logistics services, and strengthening capacity on trade defence.”
MoIT Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan
In addition, the ministry will also continue to improve and promote the early warning of foreign trade defence cases against Vietnamese exports; intensify the fight against evasion of trade defence measures and origin fraud; and increase the dissemination of information and knowledge about this work for businesses./.
