Vietnam is on track this year to bump Britain from its long-time place among the US’s top seven goods trading partners, VNA citied an article run by Bloomberg on December 19.

The US remains the largest market for Vietnamese seafood exports. Photo: VNA

The article cited data from the US Census Bureau showing that the UK’s share of the US merchandise trade slid to 2.6% through the first 10 months of this year while Vietnam’s rose to 2.7%.

In full-year numbers going back almost 20 years, the top seven US partners in goods trade have consistently been Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, the Republic of Korea, and the UK, though their position within the group has shifted around, it said.

Vietnam didn’t appear in the bureau’s top-15 list until 2019, and it has climbed ever since, ending last year at No. 10. If Vietnam’s lead over the UK holds for the final two months of 2022, it will be the first time that a majority of the top seven are Asian economies, read the article.

The numbers reflect trends that both predate the pandemic and were accelerated by it. China’s share of US goods trade, which stood at 13.2% in October, has been edging down since it peaked on a full-year basis at 16.4% in 2017.

As American companies sought suppliers outside of China during the trade war between Beijing and Washington, the share of US trade with countries like Mexico and Vietnam has been rising, it noted.

Amid Covid-19 impacts and the interruption of global supply chains, trade between Vietnam and the US has still grown. In the first nine months of this year, two-way trade rose 20% year on year to USD 96.2 billion, including USD 85.1 billion worth of Vietnam’s exports, accounting for 30% of the Southeast Asian country's total export revenue in the period.

The US is currently the largest export market of Vietnam, while Vietnam is the fifth largest trade partner of the US, accounting for about 4% of the US's total import turnover.

A delegation of over 30 Vietnamese enterprises pays a fact-finding tour to the US market from November 20 to December 1, with an aim to build effective business strategies in the global economy through digital transformation and innovation. Photo: VNA

Vietnam’s strong economic performance in 2022 has been driven by several factors, including export, domestic demand and private investment, according to Andrea Coppola, the World Bank’s lead economist.

In an interview granted to the press, Coppola explained that Vietnam’s export has been very strong in the past and shown to be resilient, including during the Covid-19 crisis when manufacturing exports were the main driver of GDP growth.

He added that domestic consumption and retail sales were powerful engines of growth for the country in 2022.

This is reflected by the strong recovery of retail sales, which grew by 17% year-on-year in October 2022 compared to 0.4% year-on-year in January.

Meanwhile, private investments played an important role, he said, noting that during the first 11 months of 2022, FDI disbursements grew by more than 15% than during the same period in 2021.

According to the economist, the Vietnamese economy will face strong headwinds in 2023 on both external and internal fronts.

The total exports from January to November were up 13.4% over the same period last year, according to Vietnam's General Statistics Office.

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