Chart: T.Binh

The first market to reach the size of US$ 100 billion

As a neighbouring country and a traditional partner, import and export activities between Vietnam and China have set many records, especially in recent years.

One of the essential milestones is that China became the first partner to reach an import and export turnover of US$ 100 billion per year (so far, only two markets have achieved this milestone: China and the United States).

Based on the customs statistics, the above result was achieved for the first time in 2018. In that year, the total import-export turnover between the two countries reached US$ 106.89 billion (Vietnam exported US$ 41 .37 billion and imported US$ 65.52 billion).

Since then, bilateral trade between Vietnam and China has maintained over US$ 100 billion annually.

Specifically, in 2019 reached US$ 116.93 billion (Vietnam exported US$ 41.46 billion, imported US$ 75.47 billion); in 2020 reached US$ 133.1 billion (export reached US$ 48.9 billion and imported US$ 84.2 billion).

They were entering 2021, despite the complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a great impact on global trade, including trade activities between Vietnam and China, the import and export activities among the two countries still achieved positive results with the total turnover of the whole year reaching nearly US$ 166 billion. Vietnam's exports reached US$ 55.3 billion, up 13.1% compared to 2020, and imports reached US$ 110.5 billion, a sharp increase of 31.3%.

In addition, China is the first import market of Vietnam, with a turnover of US$ 100 billion per year (in 2021).

Vietnam has a large trade deficit

According to the latest data from the General Department of Customs, in the first nine months of 2022, imports and export between the two countries surpassed US$ 100 billion (reaching US$ 132.38 billion).

Vietnam's exports reached US$41.22 billion, up 6.4% over the same period last year and accounting for 14.6% of the country's total turnover.

By the end of September, there were 10 groups of export goods with a turnover of US$ 1 billion or more. The largest was phones and components with US$ 10.07 billion, up 42.1% over the same period last year.

Other notable "billion-dollar" commodity groups included: computers, electronic products and components, Camera Camcorder, devices, vegetables, seafood, rubber…

In the opposite direction, by the end of September, Vietnam spent up to US$ 91.16 billion importing goods from China, up 12.6% over the same period last year and accounting for 33.1% of the country's total import turnover.

Not only holding the No. 1 position but the market share of goods import turnover from China also far exceeded the remaining markets.

For example, compared to the second largest import market, South Korea, China's market share exceeded 15.6 percentage points, equivalent to a gap of more than US$ 43 billion (the Korean market reached US$ 48.12 billion), accounting for 17.5% of the country's import turnover).

With the great advantage mentioned above, China is present in most of Vietnam's imported goods groups, from technology to machinery, equipment or raw materials for production, and consumer goods... with a turnover from hundreds of millions to more than US$ 10 billion /group.

Great advantages can be mentioned, such as computers, electronic products and components reaching US$ 18.74 billion, up 20.4% over the same period in 2021; machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts reaching US$ 18.73 billion, down slightly by 0.3%; raw materials for textiles and garments, leather and footwear accounted for 53% of this group with US$ 11.07 billion, up 9.3%.

In general, China is Vietnam's largest trading partner. In the import dimension, this country is also the No. 1 market, while exports hold the 2nd position (Vietnam's largest export market is the United States).

However, it is worth noting that our country's trade deficit with neighbouring countries is still very large.

For example, in 2021, our country had a trade deficit of US$ 55.23 billion and, in the first 9 months of this year, was approximately US$ 50 billion. With a large scale of import turnover and higher growth than exports, the deficit will likely be more significant in 2022 than last year.