HANOI: Việt Nam posted trade surplus of US$3.52 billion in the first 10 months of this year, even though the country’s exports were affected negatively by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall. The General Statistics Office (GSO) reported that the country’s export revenue in the period rose 7.2 per cent to $144.12 billion, of which Vietnamese firms made up $41.4 billion, up 4.9 per cent, while foreign invested firms contributed $102.7 billion, up 8.1 per cent.
The rise was thanks to the increasing export value of some key export staples, such as textile and garments, computers and electronic products, equipment and machines, footwear and seafood. Textile and garment exports in the 10 months were valued at $19.9 billion, up 5.2 per cent against the same period last year. Computers, electronic products and equipment also contributed $14.79 billion to the country’s total export revenue thanks to a surge of 15.6 per cent.
Footwear and seafood also rose 6.9 per cent and 6.5 per cent to $10.36 billion and $5.74 billion, respectively. According to the GSO, Việt Nam’s export of phones and phone components dropped 3.9 per cent in October to $2.8 billion. However, the products’ export value in the first 10 months still rose 10.3 per cent against the same period last year to $28.3 billion.
GSO noted that in September, problems with the batteries of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 led to a recall and halt on exports of the smartphone, leading to an expected decline in Việt Nam’s export turnover for phones and phone components (of which Samsung accounts for a major proportion).
According to GSO, in fact, the Galaxy Note 7 incident affected the operations of Samsung Vietnam and made the company suffer from reductions in profit, but it did not significantly impact exports in this commodity group. This was because part of the stock of the Note 7 was distributed in the domestic market, while the export of this product accounted for only a small portion of total exports. At the same time, Samsung Vietnam boosted the export of other products to compensate for the drop in the export of Galaxy Note 7.
The GSO also reported that the United States was still Việt Nam’s largest export market in the first 10 months with $31.8 billion, up 15 per cent compared with the same period in 2015. The runners-up were the European Union ($27.3 billion, up 7.4 per cent), China ($17.3 billion, up 23.9 per cent), Japan ($12 billion, up 3.4 per cent) and the Republic of Korea ($9.5 billion, up 29.1 per cent). For ASEAN alone, Việt Nam’s exports reached $14.2 billion, down 7.6 per cent.
As for imports, the country’s import value in the first 10 months increased 2.1 per cent to $140.6 billion, of which Vietnamese firms represented $57.4 billion, up 2.4 per cent, and foreign invested firms made up $83.2 billion, up 1.9 per cent. China remained the largest import market of Việt Nam with import value at $40.3 billion, down 1.2 per cent against the same period last year. It was followed by the Republic of Korea ($25.8 billion, up 10.8 per cent), ASEAN ($19.1 billion, down 2.8 per cent), Japan ($12.2 billion, up 1.7 per cent), European Union ($9.1 billion, up 6.4 per cent) and the United States ($6.7 billion, up 0.6 per cent).
