Vietnam was ranked fifth in terms of global trade connectedness last year, up five places from the previous ranking in 2017, according to a report jointly released by the US’s New York University Stern School of Business and logistics giant DHL.

The DHL Global Connectedness Index (GCI) 2020 is jointly released by the US’s
New York University Stern School of Business and logistics giant DHL.

Overall, Vietnam was the top ranked lower-middle-income country, at 38th among 169 countries and territories worldwide in the DHL Global Connectedness Index (GCI) 2020. The GCI measures each country’s global connectedness based both on the size of its international flows relative to the size of its domestic economy (depth) and the extent to which its international flows are distributed globally or more narrowly focused (breadth).

The report found that the depth leaders, or the economies with the highest proportions of flows crossing national borders, are Singapore, Hong Kong (China), Belgium, the Netherlands, and Estonia. The breadth champions, or the countries with the most global flow patterns, are the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Israel, and the Republic of Korea.

According to the report, Vietnam was particularly strong in depth, where it was the top outperformer, though it also outperformed on breadth. The country’s best performance was on the trade pillar, where it ranked fifth overall, the report said.

The report noted that Vietnam has become a serious competitor to China not only in textiles manufacturing, but also increasingly in high tech products.

It also put Vietnam among the 10 countries with the largest outperformance, which include Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Malta, the United Arab Emirates, Mozambique, Hungary, and Thailand.

It said half of these top 10 countries, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, are located in Southeast Asia, a region where countries tend to have unusually high trade depth. Southeast Asian countries benefit from linkages with wider Asian supply chain networks as well as ASEAN policy initiatives promoting regional economic integration.

Shoeib Reza Choudhury, CEO of DHL Express Vietnam, said Vietnam was one of the top destinations of companies seeking to diversify their manufacturing base, drawn by the young labour force, trade pacts and social stability.