Vietnam’s trade surplus reaches five-year high

Vietnam posted a total trade surplus of US$19.1 billion in 2020, the highest level in the past five years, the General Statistics Office (GSO) announced at the press brief held in Hanoi on December 27.

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The GSO said that import and export activities have recorded positive results in 2020 despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruption of global trade.

The Vietnam’s total import and export revenue is estimated to have hit US$543.9 billion in 2020, up 5.1% over the same period last year, including US$281.5 billion worth of export revenue, up 6.5%, and US$262.4 billion in import revenue, up 3.6%.

Director of the GSO’s Trade and Service Statistics Department Nguyen Viet Phong said that the high trade surplus can be seen as a bright spot of the Vietnamese economy, contributing significantly to the economic growth in 2020 which will also create a positive impacton exchange rates and foreign exchange reserves in the context that Vietnam needs more resources to prepare foreconomic recovery in 2021.

The trade surplus of US$19.1 billion also demonstrated that Vietnam has made good use of opportunities from signed free trade agreements, particularly EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

As many as 31 groups of goods posted export revenue of over US$1 billion each, accounting for 91.9% of Vietnam’s total export revenue. Of which, six groups of goods recorded export revenue of over US$10 billion each, accounting for 64.3% of total export revenue of Vietnam.

In the meantime, 35 groups of goods reported import revenue of over US$1 billion each, accounting for 89.6% of Vietnam total import revenue, with four groups of goods having import revenue of over US$10 billion each, accounting for nearly 50% of Vietnam’s total import revenue in 2020.

The US was Vietnam’s largest export market while China was its largest import market in 2020.