How has Vietnam’s import-export industry changed after the COVID-19 pandemic

The rising covid-19 pandemic has restricted production, business and trade activities, among which, the biggest impact is the import and export of goods to the markets of major countries.

Import and export activities before the pandemic

In 2018, the total import-export turnover reached 480.17 billion USD, increasing 12.2%, equivalent to 52.05 billion USD compared to 2017. In which, exports reached 243.48 billion USD, increasing 13.2 % and imports reached $236.69 billion, increasing 11.1%.

In general, the trade balance before the Covid 19 pandemic was always at a very high level. For the first time, the country reached 517.26 billion USD. In which, the value of exports reached 264.19 billion USD, increasing  8.4% and imports reached 253.07 billion USD, increasing  6.8%.

This is an impressive growth when Vietnam makes good use of opportunities in international economic integration to expand import and export, contributing resources to the community as well as coping with the Covid-19 pandemic in the coming years.

How does COVID19 affect Vietnam’s import and export industry?

The covid 19 pandemic has caused many difficulties, greatly affecting Vietnam’s import and export activities, which are:

The global economy suffered a large-scale decline: According to the survey, at the beginning of covid 19, global economic growth fell the deepest since the recession, decreasing 4.2% compared to 2019. In 2020, most of the economic sectors had negative growth, except China, Egypt.

The export market of Vietnam’s goods had also been severely affected, the euro area’s common currency decreased to 7.3%; the US declined by 3.5%; China’s growth was only 2.3%, the slowest pace since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Global trade narrowed sharply: export and import activities in most countries in the world were disrupted in terms of the supply chain and production materials fell sharply.

There are occurrences of supply chain disruptions, investment shift trends, value chain disruptions. Because of the sudden disruption of the global supply chain, the scarcity of goods has occurred all over the world, especially in the fields of automobile manufacturing, medical equipment…

Supporting industry is still underdeveloped: Vietnam has not yet been able to manufacture products that ensure quality and scale to participate in the supply chain of products and components for businesses when exporting.

Orientation and recovery after the pandemic

Orientation and ways to recover after the covid 19 pandemic are:

Continue to exploit and take advantage of opportunities from free trade agreements  to develop the market, along with helping to remove barriers to entering new markets.

Continue to closely monitor the evolution of the epidemic to propose appropriate handling, support businesses, give recommendations to import-export agencies and businesses, and be aware of the situation of the world to take advantage of all opportunities, maintain the strength of import and export in the current context.

Prioritize implementation of export promotion activities and export markets to recover soon after the pandemic. Focus on monitoring the situation of each market to review and identify the types of goods that countries are in demand of importing to exploit and promote exports.

Strengthening activities to support businesses in the market, reforming administrative procedures related to import and export, removing difficulties in input, supporting information and promoting the organization of trade promotion activities. 

Through the information we shared above, surely readers have understood more about the changes in the import and export industry after the Covid 19. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below this article to be answered