With the results in the first 10 months and positive signs at present, export-import turnover in 2020 can set a new record of 540 billion USD. This is a shining point amid the impact of COVID-19 across the world's economies.

440 billion USD in 10 months

Information announced by General Customs Department on 16 November showed that Vietnam’s total import-export value in October reached 51,58 billion USD, up 0.4% compared to the prior month.

Of which, export value reached 27.26 billion USD, up by 0.4% compared to the previous month (corresponding to an increase of 96 million USD); imports reached 24.32 billion USD, up 0.5% (an increase of 116 million USD).

Accumulated at the end of October, the total import-export value reached 440.09 billion USD, up 2.7% compared the same period last year.

The value of exports reached 229.79 billion USD, up 5%, respectively increased by 10.85 billion USD and imports hit nearly 210.3 billion USD, up slightly by 0.3%, an increase of 661 million USD.

During the month, trade balance was in surplus of 2.94 billion USD. This contributed to bringing the trade surplus of the past 10 months to nearly 19.5 billion USD.

In October, the total import and export value of foreign direct investment (FDI) firms reached 35.78 billion USD, up 1.1% from the previous month, increasing the scale of turnover from the beginning of year to 295.86 billion USD, up 7.4%, or an increase of 20.49 billion USD from the same period in 2019.

By the end of October, total export turnover of FDI enterprises reached 162.39 billion USD, up 7% from the same period last year. Meanwhile, imports reached 133.47 billion USD, up 8%. The trade balance of FDI enterprises reached an export surplus of 28.92 billion USD.

For the import-export market, by the end of October, trade exchanges with the Americas reached 91.24 billion USD, up 14.9% from the same period in 2019, continuing to be the continent with the highest growth rate.

Meanwhile, imports and exports with Asia continued to account for the highest proportion (64.2%) in the total turnover of Vietnam. By the end of October, trade with this market hit 282.49 billion USD, up 0.8% over the same period in 2019, of which the export value was 113.31 billion USD, up by 1% and the import value was 169.18 billion USD, up by 0.6%.

Import-export turnover with the remaining continents in turn are: Europe reached 52.69 billion USD, down 3.9%; Oceania reached 8 billion USD, up slightly by 0.1% and Africa reached 5.67 billion USD, down by 5.4% from the same period last year.

Set a new record

By the end of October, there were more optimistic signals related to import and export activities.

First is that both exports and imports had positive growth. Next is Vietnam continues to have a record export surplus.

In particular, for the last two months (September and October) the total import-export turnover of Vietnam topped 50 billion USD / month, much higher than the average in 10 months (average in 10 months is 44 billion USD / month).

If a positive trend as recent times (with an average value of 50 billion USD / month) is maintained, in the last two months of 2020, export and import turnover will increase by 100 billion USD and bring a record result of USD 540 billion in 2020.

The estimate is completely grounded, because of the fact that in the last months of the year, import and export activities often increase higher than in the beginning of the year due to shopping demand at New Year and Lunar New Year (in Vietnam and some Asian countries).

Although the above result only increased slightly by more than 4% compared to 2019 (equivalent to about 23 billion USD), this is a very positive result in the context of global trade being strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the fact that Vietnam maintains such stability and growth is also a very remarkable result and shows the effects of the Government's instructions, the efforts of ministries, branches, and agencies; and especially the efforts of the business community and employees.