Preliminary assessment of Vietnam international merchandise trade performance in the first half of November, 2023

The Vietnam Customs Statistics announced that in the first half (01-15/11/2023) of  November-2023, Vietnam’s total exports of  US dollars 14.66 billion and imports  of  US dollars 14.77 billion resulted in a trade deficit of nearly US dollars 118 million. Accordingly, the total value of export and import turnover of Vietnam in the first half of November was US dollars 29.43 billion, down by 14.7% as compared to the second half of October-2023.

Vietnam‘s trade-in-goods from January to the first half of November of 2023 totaled US dollars 587.68 billion in value terms. It posted an decrease of 9% (equivalent to USD 58.27 billion) from the same period of previous year. In which, the total merchandise exports value was down 6.4% to nearly US dollars 306.06 billion and the total merchandise imports value was down 11.7%, to US dollars 281.62 billion.

In the view of FDI traders, the value of exportation and importation from January to the first half of November of 2023 reached USD 404.03 billion, down by 10% as compared to the same period of last year.

Export:

When compared with the second half of October-2023, export of first half of November decreased by 18.7%, mostly as a result of the downturn registered in machine, tools & equipments (down by 29.4% – USD 763 millions); telephone, mobile phones and part thereof (down by 21% – USD 559 millions); computers, electrical products (down by 16.5% – USD 479 million equally); textiles and garment (down by 9.7% – USD 139 million); means of transports (down by 20.1% – USD 137 million).

Chart 1: Top 10 main exported commodities of Vietnam from Jan. to November 15^th 2023 as compared to the same period of 2022.

Import:

In the first half of November 2023, import decreased by 10.5% when compared with the second half of October, mainly reflecting the downturn in computers, electrical products (down by 9% – USD 426 million equally); machine, tools & equipments (up by 7.6% – USD 152 millions).

Chart 2: Top 10 main imported commodities of Vietnam from Jan. to November 15^th 2023 as compared to the same period of 2022.