Vietnam’s export value was estimated at US$82.24 billion in the first six months of 2016, up 5.9 per cent from the same period of 2015 (up 9.2 per cent year on year). Low export growth was mainly attributed to a drop of 6.3 per cent in export prices, including prices of crude oil and manufactured goods.
Mr Tran Tuan Anh, Minister of Industry and Trade, said the export growth of 6 per cent or lower is low, even when taking into consideration its correlation with GDP growth. Especially, the export growth target set for 2016 is 10 per cent.
Nevertheless, against the backdrop of shrinking domestic supply and foreign demand plus low export prices, that growth rate is quite positive, especially when comparatively looking to other countries the region (suffering export and import declines or staying unchanged from the corresponding period of last year. For example, in the first four months of 2016, China suffered a 7.6 per cent decline, India saw an 8 per cent slump, Brazil witnessed a 3.4 per cent drop, and Indonesia tumbled 13.6 per cent).
Remarking on export performances, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said the export value of US$82.24 billion in the first half of 2016 was a tremendous effort against the backdrop of seriously devastating droughts in Central and Central highlands provinces and massive cattle deaths in northern provinces because of low temperatures.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the export turnover of agricultural and aquatic products grew 6 per cent in the reporting period, representing a relatively high growth in comparison with the performance in the same period of 2015 (down 8.9 per cent). Apart from positively contributing to the overall export growth, the addition of US$116 million showed Vietnamese companies’ production and marketing capabilities were very positive, especially in the context of shrinking global demands. This will be an important contributor to agricultural export growth in the second half of this year.
Vietnam saw a steep drop of 38.7 per cent in fuel and mineral exports from the same period of 2015, mainly caused by a sharp decline in crude oil shipments and prices.
Mr Nguyen Vu Truong Son, General Director of the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), said that the oil and gas industry was hardest hit by global oil price slumps, sometimes falling to only US$27 per barrel. This development seriously hit oil and gas producers and explorers as well as service providers.
The performance of manufactured commodities was highly sensitive to the aggregate demand because their impacts were greater than agricultural exports. The lower export growth than the same period of 2015 pulled a drag on the overall export performance of the country.
In addition, garment - textile and leather - footwear companies are suffering from order drops because many customers shifted their offers to producers in Bangladesh and Cambodia if specification requirements are not strictly high.
The United States continued to be Vietnam’s largest and rising export market. Stateside shipments increased 12.8 per cent in the January - June period, lower than the performance in the same period of 2015 (up 18.6 per cent) and accounted for 21.5 per cent of the country’s export earnings. Exports to the European Union (EU) and China climbed 9.8 per cent and 14.3 per cent, respectively.
Given that import demands in major markets remained low and export prices fell in the world market, overall export turnover will hardly bounce when many companies have maxed out. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc directed the Ministry of Industry and Trade to collect opinions and recommendations from companies engaged in fishery, garment - textile, petroleum and other industries to seek solutions to remove existing obstacles and adjust production and business supports for companies in order to achieve the growth target in the last six months of this year.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has carried out many different measures like adding efforts to clear unreasonable technical barriers raised by some countries to Vietnamese exports, adding trade promotion and marketing programmes in the US and the EU, working with stakeholders to identify and solve all issues relating to import and export procedures, and continuing to effectively deploy the project “Encouraging Vietnamese companies to directly engage in foreign distribution networks to 2020.”
Huong Ly
Vietnamese
