Vietnam has taken full advantage of the CPTPP to gain strong growth in exports to Canada and Mexico, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

These are the two CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) members that have not yet signed bilateral free trade agreement (FTAs) with Vietnam.

In the first two months of this year, Vietnam’s exports to Canada rose by 20.39 percent to 578 million USD year on year.

With over 37 million people, a high standard of living and an urbanisation rate at 80 percent, Canada is considered a potential market for many key export items of Vietnam, including textiles, footwear, seafood, tea, pepper, cashew nut, coffee and wooden furniture.

During the first two months, textile and apparel export value reached more than 100 million USD, up 5.86 percent year on year. The export value of mobile phones and accessories surged by 104.22 percent to 122.09 million USD compared to the same period last year.

Other products with strong growth in exports included the group of iron and steel and plastic materials with rates of 153.69 percent and 354.06 percent year on year, respectively.

Vietnam’s export value to Mexico reached 497.2 million USD in the first two months. Of which, many products gained high export value, including computers, electronic products and components (133.6 million USD), telephones and components (122.6 million USD), shoes and sandals (47.5 million USD), textiles and garments (16.3 million USD), machinery, equipment and other spare parts (34.5 million USD), vehicles and spare parts (35.2 million USD).

Assessing the implementation of FTAs to promote exports, especially the CPTPP, Luong Hoang Thai, director of the MoIT’s Department of Multilateral Trade Policy, told the Dau tu (Investment) newspaper reported that Vietnam’s enterprises have efficiently exploited markets with which Vietnam has not yet signed FTAs.

In fact, Vietnam’s enterprises have done more than expected, taking full advantage of the CPTPP, Thai said. In 2019, Vietnam gained high growth in exports from the CPTPP countries, especially Canada and Mexico, while the agreement came into effect on January 14, 2019.

The country gained a year on year growth of 26-29 percent in export value to Canada and Mexico last year, he said.

The CPTPP has partly contributed to the strong growth in exports of Vietnam so the country had a trade surplus of 1.6 billion USD with the CPTPP market last year.

Before this agreement, Vietnam had a total trade deficit of 900 million USD with this market, said Thai.

Meanwhile, the General Department of Customs said Vietnam still recorded a trade surplus of 1 billion USD in the first half of March 2020, even during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In the first half of March, Vietnam’s total trade value reached 21.47 billion USD, including export value of 11.2 billion USD and import value of 10.3 billion USD.

Therefore, the country achieved total trade value of 97.85 billion USD in the period from January 1 to March 15, up 4.4 percent year on year. It had a trade surplus of 2.74 billion USD.

Of which, the total export value recorded $50.29 billion, up 6.8 percent and the total import value was 47.55 billion USD, up 1.9 percent.

During the period from January 1 until March 15, goods with high export growth included phones and components (10.2 billion USD); computers, electronic products and components (7 billion USD); machinery, equipment, tools and other spare parts (3.93 billion USD); seafood (1.26 billion USD); textiles and garments (5.88 billion USD); footwear (3.42 billion USD); timber and wood products (2.1 billion USD); and vehicles and spare parts (1.76 billion USD)./.

Source: en.vietnamplus.vn/vietnam-gains-higher-exports-to-canada-mexico-partly-due-to-cptpp/170838.vnp