Many positive signs
On February 6, 2025, in Mong Cai, Quang Ninh, a signing ceremony for the acceptance of the handover of an office building and equipment for the agricultural and food laboratory (CCIC) at Bac Luan II Border Gate took place.
With the aim of ensuring that Vietnamese goods that have been tested and meet standards for export to the Chinese market can be cleared through customs smoothly, avoiding unnecessary losses such as goods being turned back or destroyed due to not meeting standards, from August 2024, Tan Dai Duong International Import Export Joint Stock Company (Mong Cai, Vietnam) and China Testing Group - Guangxi Company Limited’s Dongxing Branch (China) have cooperated to invest in building a laboratory to test the quality of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the area of the project to invest in the construction of technical infrastructure for services and trade of the Bac Luan II Bridge Inter-sectoral Control Station.
The laboratory has a total area of 430m2 designed and equipped with modern equipment according to international standards ISO 17025, with a total investment of 30 billion VND, located at Bac Luan 2 Inspection Site, the area adjacent to Mong Cai International Border Gate - Bac Luan II Bridge Area, thus contributing to supporting management agencies, organisations and enterprises in proactively monitoring the quality of food, agricultural, forestry and fishery products to ensure safety before exporting to the Chinese market.
This is considered very good news for export activities to the Chinese market, especially in the context that Vietnamese agricultural products are having to meet many market standards.
For example, in early January 2025, China requested testing for yellow O on durian from Vietnam and Thailand, after detecting residues of industrial dyes in Thai durian.
According to the latest statistics from the General Statistics Office, in January 2025, the total import-export turnover of goods reached 63.15 billion USD, the trade balance of goods saw a trade surplus of 3.03 billion USD. Notably, in the structure of import-export goods, the import turnover of goods in January 2025 reached 30.06 billion USD.
The group of production materials alone reached 28.26 billion USD, accounting for 94% of the total. Such a large import figure for production materials continues to be a positive sign, showing that production and export activities may improve in the coming time.
Dr Le Quoc Phuong, former Deputy Director of the Centre for Industry and Trade Information under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, commented that import-export activities in 2025 are expected to be more favourable because the world economic situation is more positive when the US Federal Reserve (FED) has sent messages to stop raising interest rates.
The problem of high inventories in markets is gradually being overcome, especially in key export markets that have encountered difficulties in 2023, such as the EU and the United States.
Domestically, the government has taken strong action with many comprehensive support solutions for the economy. As the leading agency in managing and operating import-export activities, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has promptly identified difficulties and risks from export markets to advise and propose solutions to develop export markets. In addition, trade defence work has been implemented promptly, bringing great benefits to businesses.
On the business community side, enterprises with increasingly improved capacity have been more proactive in adapting to a rapidly changing and unpredictable market.
However, fluctuations in the market are expected to have a strong impact on the import and export situation. For example, exports to the US are expected to face many difficulties due to the country's trade defence policies.
According to the expert group of Rong Viet Securities, it is likely that the Trump 2.0 administration will apply tariffs or targeted trade defence measures and link these tariffs to stricter rules of origin.
Accordingly, the ultimate goal is still to move Chinese goods to Vietnam to avoid higher tariffs from the US. The probability of Vietnam being taxed from 10-20% (although low) could still happen in the second half of 2025 or 2026, which somewhat affects export prospects.
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| Enterprises participate in a major trade promotion event: Ambiente Frankfurt Fair 2025. |
Enterprises strive for the new year
Despite facing many difficulties, businesses are currently making efforts to take advantage of every opportunity to achieve the highest possible export results. For example, Pham Van Viet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Viet Thang Jean Company Limited (VitaJean), said that in recent time, businesses have been making efforts to proactively respond to the predicted difficulties in the market.
In addition, they have made the most of opportunities to diversify raw material sources by increasing the domestic ratio, importing raw materials from new markets such as Pakistan, rebuilding the supply chain.
Viettel Post — a large enterprise in the logistics industry — has been making efforts to build a cross-border logistics system. Accordingly, from the end of 2024, the 143-hectare Viettel Logistics Park project in Lang Son, bordering China, has come into operation, helping Viettel Post improve its competitiveness by not only solving the problem of congestion of goods exported to China, especially agricultural products, but also shortening customs clearance time from 3-4 days to only 24 hours.
Thanks to that, agricultural products such as dragon fruit and watermelon can now be exported quickly and safely, helping to minimise losses due to “border congestion” for farmers.
Enterprises have also actively participated in major trade promotion events since the beginning of the year. For example, on February 7, 2025 (local time), the Ambiente Frankfurt 2025 Fair opened in Frankfurt, Germany. This is the world’s leading event for consumer goods and gifts held annually in February in Frankfurt, Germany.
This year’s fair has the participation of nearly 60 Vietnamese enterprises, including Minh Long, Kim Giang Handicraft, Quang Vinh Ceramic, Thang Long Craft, and Duc Thanh Wood, along with many other enterprises. Of which, 15 handicraft enterprises participated in the fair as part of the activities of the National Trade Promotion Programme.
Over many years of participating in the exhibition, many major Vietnamese brands have left their mark at the fair in particular as well as in the German and EU markets in general, such as Minh Long Porcelain Company, Manh Dan Ceramics, etc.
The authorities are also actively negotiating and opening new markets for Vietnamese goods and organising events to promote the export of Vietnamese goods. All solutions aim to achieve the export growth target of 12% for 2025.
