AsemconnectVietnam - Import and export of goods regained growth momentum in October of 2023, increasing by 4.1% after slowing down in the previous month.

Import-export highlight
With positive and synchronous measures to remove difficulties to support domestic production, promote trade, and expand export markets continuing to be strongly implemented, import and export activities continue to have positive results.
The latest updated data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed that the total import-export turnover of goods in October was estimated at 61.62 billion USD, up by 4.1% over the previous month and up by 5.6% over the same period last year.
Regarding the exports of goods, after the decline in export turnover of goods in September (down by 6.3%), the export turnover of goods in October regained growth momentum, estimated at 32.3 billion USD, up by 5.3% over the previous month.
In comparison to the same period last year, the export turnover of goods in October increased by 5.9%, of which the exports of the domestic economic sector increased by 15.1%, the exports of the foreign invested sector (including crude oil) increased by 3%. This was a very positive bright spot as the growth rate of the domestic business sector was 5 times higher than that of the foreign invested sector.
Overall, for the first 10 months of 2023, merchandise export turnover was estimated to reach 291.28 billion USD, down by 7.1% over the same period last year, showing that the decline in export growth has narrowed significantly compared with the decrease of 12% in the first half of 2023.
In 10 months, there were 33 items with export turnover of over 1 billion USD, accounting for 92.9% of total export turnover (there were 07 export items with over 10 billion USD, accounting for 66.2%).
Regarding the structure of export goods, in October of 2023, the export turnover of most main products achieved positive growth compared to the same period last year due to the recovery on the demand side and a relatively low base level of the last months of 2022. In particular, the exports of processed industrial goods continued to have a positive recovery in October with export turnover increasing by 4.6%. However, in the first 10 months, the export turnover of this product group decreased by 8.3% compared to the same period of 2022, estimated at 247.34 billion USD.
Meanwhile, although the exports of some processed industrial products such as textiles, footwear, wood and wood products, etc. have shown positive signs of recovery recently, in general the recovery momentum was still slow.
The export turnover of fuel and mineral products in October of 2023 decreased by 51.1% compared to the same period of 2022. Overall for the first 10 months, the export turnover of this product group decreased by 20.2% compared to the same period last year, estimated to reach only 3.27 billion USD.
Import and export of goods continued to prosper
On the contrary, agricultural products continued to make impressive contributions, being a bright spot in the country's export activities, especially several agricultural product groups such as rice, vegetables, coffee, cashew nuts, etc. The export turnover of agricultural and aquatic products in October was estimated at 3 billion USD, up by 18.3% over the same period last year. This was also the only product group to record growth in the first 10 months of 2023, with export turnover estimated at 26.7 billion USD, an increase of 3.8%.
Rice was one of the products with high export turnover in the past 10 months. Mr. Do Ha Nam, Vice President of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), said that rice prices are at record highs, pushing domestic rice prices higher than export prices. This is also the reason why Vietnam's export rice prices continued to go against the world tide.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Viet - Director of the Planning Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), compared to the rice price fever in 2008, this year Vietnam has taken better advantage of market opportunities. According to calculations from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the highest scenario, in 2023 Vietnam can export about 7.8 million tonnes of rice, with a turnover of about 4.2 - 4.5 billion USD.
Regarding the structure of the export market for goods: In general, all industries face difficulties in the export market due to a decrease in total demand in the world, especially for non-essential consumer goods, so in the first 10 months of 2023, our country's exports to most of the main markets decreased. However, the level of decline tends to gradually narrow and the level of impact on exports to each industry is different (exports to markets Asian market decreased by 2%; European market decreased by 7.2%; American market decreased by 15.8%; African market increased by 6.1%; Oceania market decreased by 6.5%).
Regarding import of goods, import turnover of goods in October of 2023 was estimated to reach 29.31 billion USD, up by 2.9% compared to the previous month. In the first 10 months of 2023, the import turnover was estimated to reach 266.67 billion USD, down by 12.3% over the same period last year.
One of the positive points in October was that the import turnover of raw materials for export production continued to increase. In particular, the group of raw materials for production still accounted for a large proportion of the country's total import turnover, estimated at 26.09 billion USD, up by 7.2% over the same period last year and accounting for 89% of the country's total import turnover, showing signs of recovery in industrial production. Of which, the import turnover of computers, electronic products and components reached 8.2 billion USD, up by 26.4% over the same period last year; the imports of machinery, equipment, tools, and spare parts reached 3.5 billion USD, an increase of 2.4%; the imports of fabrics of all kinds increased by 8%, the imports of steel of all kinds increased by 35.2%; and the imports of petroleum of all kinds increased by 44.8%.
Because the imports decreased more sharply than exports, Vietnam's trade balance in October continued to have a trade surplus of about 3 billion USD, bringing the total trade surplus in the first 10 months of 2023 to 24.61 billion USD (in the same period last year, the country’s trade surplus reached 9.56 billion USD).
CK
Source: VITIC/congthuong.vn