Continuous trade surplus with the United States

13.26 billion USD is the value of Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States, calculated from the beginning of the year to the end of September 2013 according to updated statistics of the General Department of Customs.

Of which, Vietnam's export turnover reached 17.141 billion USD and the value of imported goods reached 3.881 billion USD.

Thus, the trade surplus value in the past 9 months is approximately equal to that of 2012 (14.8 billion USD) and is larger than the trade surplus value of the years from 2011 onwards. Another important thing is that in recent years, Vietnam has continuously maintained a trade surplus with the United States - the largest export market among the countries and territories importing Vietnamese goods.

A recent statistical report by the General Department of Customs shows that in 2007, Vietnam's total export turnover to the United States reached 11.79 billion USD. Although severely affected by the global economic recession in the following years, the total import-export turnover between Vietnam and the United States still maintained a high growth rate. By 2012, the total import-export turnover between the two countries had reached 24.49 billion USD, an increase of 12.3% compared to 2011 and 3.6 times higher than the results of 2005. Of which, Vietnam's exports reached 19.66 billion USD and imports reached 4.83 billion USD.

Along with the growth of foreign trade activities between the two countries, Vietnam's trade surplus has also been continuously expanded. If in 2007, this value only reached 8.4 billion USD, then by 2012 it had surpassed the 10 billion USD mark (reaching 10.5 billion USD) and by 2012, Vietnam had a trade surplus of 14.8 billion USD to the United States.

Among more than 30 main commodity groups exported to the United States, textiles and garments have been the leading commodity for many years, with an export value of 7.4 billion USD in 2012, accounting for 38% of Vietnam's total export turnover to this market and nearly 50% of the country's total textile and garment export turnover. In the first 9 months of this year, the turnover of this commodity reached 6.395 billion USD, equivalent to 37.3% of the total export value to the United States.

In addition, items such as wood and wood products, seafood, footwear of all kinds, etc. are also key items, contributing a large proportion to Vietnam's total export turnover to the United States.

In the past 9 months of 2013, some other products with export turnover of 1 billion USD or more to the United States were: Seafood (1.016 billion USD); wood and wood products (1.404 billion USD); shoes and sandals of all kinds (1.933 billion USD).

Despite the leap in development in recent years, however, Vietnam - US trade still accounts for a modest proportion of the total annual import-export turnover of this country.

The General Department of Customs cited the United Nations Comtrade database showing that the two-way trade value between Vietnam and the US market accounts for only a very small proportion of the total import-export turnover of the US (less than 1%). For the US, Vietnam is the 23rd largest partner in terms of goods exports and the 40th largest partner in terms of goods imports.

According to.haiquan.online