Vietnam enjoyed a trade surplus of US$20.19 billion in the first eight months of this year, according to data released by the General Statistics Office (GSO) on August 29.
Vietnam spent nearly US$190 million on importing about 89,000 tons of pork in the first ten months of this year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.
Vietnam's import and export activities will face many difficulties and challenges in the last months of this year and into the next, according to Nguyen Cam Trang, Deputy Director of the Agency of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).
Up to 89 percent of the imports in the first four months of this year are raw materials and accessories for domestic production with a combined value of US$106.6 billion, up 16.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
After a temporary halt of operation due to the Covid-19 crisis, agricultural and aquatic products export businesses have worked at their full capacity to meet customers’ orders from the beginning of this year.
The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has just issued an urgent letter on the direction of strengthening the import, trading and purchase control of the Covid-19 antigen rapid test kits and RT-PCR ones.
Vietnam Customs yesterday announced that because of time reduction in customs clearance procedures for import and export goods, Vietnamese businesses have been able to save over US$3.28 billion in both direct and indirect costs. This is the result of the survey ‘Cross-border Commercial Transaction Index 2020’ for trading environment improvement, national competitiveness increase.
The Drug Administration of Vietnam under the Ministry of Health (MoH) has just sent an official letter to the Departments of Health of the provinces and cities under the Central, the hospitals under the MoH to strengthen the production, import and store the drugs for Covid-19 prevention and treatment.
The latest preliminary statistics of the General Department of Vietnam Customs showed that the total import-export value of Vietnamese goods in the first half of August this year reached US$23.66 billion, down 7.2 percent, or $1.85 billion, compared to the results in the second half of July this year.
In the past six months, due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, export turnover of many key commodities has declined, and enterprises have encountered several difficulties. Ministries and provinces have implemented many solutions to find out the market for products, especially, they have adopted the application of electronic transactions into operation to reduce the risk of interrupting commercial transactions for enterprises.
For having not opened letters of credit, 58 containers of black pepper of 13 Vietnamese enterprises exported to Nepal are stuck at ports in this country. Because their goods could not either be exported or re-exported, enterprises are asking the Prime Minister for help.
The Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) Department of Industry and Trade has recently required relevant divisions to effectively manage the domestic pork supplying sources and announced that pork will be imported when necessary in order to ensure demand of the market.
In the first half of this year, China, Indonesia and Bangladesh – three major rice importing markets of Vietnam – reduced rice imports. Experts concerned that this situation might last until the end of this year, muting export of rice of three largest rice exporters, consisting of India, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Ho Chi Minh City Branch on July 2 collaborated with the Chinese National Federation of Industries to organize the Vietnam – Taiwan Industrial Collaboration Forum to connect leading enterprises in the fields of textile, light industry, automation, smart city and other applications.
Figures by the General Department of Vietnam Customs showed that automobile businesses in Vietnam have spent nearly US$1.56 billion to import 70,918 units of cars by mid-June.
Vietnam saw a trade deficit of US$1.3 billion in May this year, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam's report on the trade balance of goods.
According to the Asia-Africa Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in the first quarter of this year, although export turnover of Vietnam to Japan’s market rose 6.7 percent compared to the same period last year, some key export products have seen sharp declines.
According the Industry Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, domestic automobile manufacturing industry had posted fairly rapid growth in the past two years.
Automobile import turnover reached US$2.4 billion, up 95.6 percent, of which imports of completely-built-unit cars from countries in the ASEAN soared 619.3 percent.
Vietnam will need to import more than 300,000 tonnes of raw cashew nuts in the remaining months of the year for processing to meet the demand of importers, according to processing companies.