HANOI: Vietnam export boom shows no signs of losing steam, defying a gloomy outlook at the beginning of the year when U.S. President Donald Trump persisted with his trade threats.
Furniture maker Xuan Hoa Viet Nam Co. is planning for a 20 percent increase in export orders next year by investing $3 million on equipment to expand production, General Director Le Duy Anh said in
interview. The company, based near Hanoi, makes office tables and cabinets for clients including Ikea. “I’m quite optimistic about our sales next year,” Anh said. “We have new customers in Europe while our regular clients also sent more orders than last year.”
When Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January, it was seen as a blow to Vietnam, which exports about a fifth of its goods to the world’s largest economy. Instead, a global trade recovery and Vietnam’s young and low-cost workforce have been magnets for international investors like Nestle SA, which have opened factories in the country this year. That’s helping underpin its economy, which economists predict expanded 6.75 percent this year ahead of data due Wednesday, among the fastest in the world.
Vietnam’s exports surged to a record $177 billion last year, with U.S. customers accounting for about 22 percent of sales. Mobile phones and parts make up the biggest segment at about a fifth. Shipments abroad accounted for 90 percent of GDP in 2015, compared with 64 percent a decade ago, according to the World Bank.
Xuan Hoa is buying three machines that make wooden furniture parts and equipment to make steel cabinets, Anh said. The company is also boosting its workforce by 20 percent with the hiring of 100 more laborers. “We’ve increased production and are now preparing for the first shipment next quarter,” Anh said. “We’re very prepared.”
Vietnam’s government is counting on those shipments to bolster growth to as much as 6.7 percent in 2018, the same goal for this year.
