Turnover of major export commodity groups in the past 10 years, unit "million US$". Chart: T.Binh.

Balance reversed

By the end of November 2021, the total import-export turnover of the country reached US$602 billion, up 22.9%, equivalent to a US$112.25 billion increase year on year.

Of which, export accounted for US$301.7 billion, up 18.3%, equivalent to US$46.7 billion. Import reached US$ 300.3 billion, up 27.9%, equivalent to US$65.5 billion.

Thus, the scale of import and export is now far higher than that of the whole year of 2020. The whole year of 2020 reached US$545.36 billion, of which exports reached US$282.65 billion and imports reached US$262.70 billion.

Within 10 years, the scale of Vietnam's import and export turnover continuously confirmed new milestones from US$200 billion to US$600 million in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 respectively.

In the current situation, it is estimated that the country's import and export in 2021 will reach about US$660 billion. Thus, in the past decade, the scale of our country's import and export turnover has increased by more than US$400 billion.

Remarkably, in 2011, the scale of import and export turnover only reached US$203.65 billion, while by the end of November 2021, the turnover had increased by approximately US$400 billion. Thus, by the end of this year, import and export turnover increased by US$460 billion compared to ten years ago. In addition, the trade balance has also reversed rapidly in the past ten years. In particular, in 2011, our country had a trade deficit of nearly US$10 billion, but by 2020 the trade surplus has now reached US$20 billion.

In spite of such fluctuations in the 11 month period, our country has returned to a trade surplus, with reaching nearly US$1.5 billion by the end of this November.

Among major trading partners, Vietnam has a trade surplus with the US of US$71.9 billion and of US$20.56 billion with the EU. In contrast, our country's trade deficit from China is US$49.29 billion and in ASEAN it is US$11.14 billion.

The structure of exports has changed dramatically

Over the past 10 years, the structure of Vietnam's export goods has changed dramatically. In 2011, the number of export industries with a turnover of US$1 billion or more was 21 groups, of which only textiles and garments had a turnover of tens of billion US$ (reaching more than US$14 billion).

But by the end of November of 2021, there were 34 export groups with a turnover of US$1 billion or more. In which, there are 7 groups of goods reaching US$10 billion or more.

Notably, the structure of key export industries has shifted significantly, from labor-intensive industries such as textiles, footwear, seafood, or commodities from mineral resources such as coal and crude oil, to the rise of high-tech products such as phones, computers and machinery.

Specifically, the three largest export groups in 2011 were textiles and garments, more than US$14 billion, coal, more than US$7.1 billion, and footwear at US$6.55 billion.

But by the end of November 2021, the export turnover of the three largest groups of goods, phones, computers and machinery increased by about 9 times, which was more than US$50 billion, US$45 billion US$ and US$33 billion respectively.

Meanwhile, in the same period, textile and garments increased by just over double, footwear increased by about triple, while coal export was only about US$200 million.

On the other hand, given imports in 2011 had 25 commodity groups with a turnover of US$1 billion or more, by the end of November 2021 this number had increased to 44 groups.

The structure of imported goods mainly focuses on raw materials and auxiliary materials for production, especially new fields such as electronics, machinery and equipment.

CBU cars are also a group of imports with high growth. In 2021, the whole country imported 54,621 CBU cars, with a turnover of more than US$1 billion, but by the end of November 2021, the number of imported cars reached more than 140,000, with a turnover of more than US$3 billion.