Vietnam's largest consumer market

In the first 6 months of 2013, the United States imported Vietnamese goods with a total value of 10.9 billion USD, an increase of 17.2% over the same period in 2012.

According to the General Department of Customs, with Vietnam becoming an official member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007, bilateral trade in goods between Vietnam and the United States in the period from 2007 to 2012 continued to have significant improvements.

To date, the United States is Vietnam's second largest partner worldwide, after China, and is Vietnam's largest trading partner in the Americas.

Customs statistics show that, while in 2005 and 2006, the total import and export turnover of goods from Vietnam to the US market only reached 6.77 billion USD and 8.81 billion USD respectively, by 2007, this figure was 11.79 billion USD. Although severely affected by the global economic recession in the following years, the total import and export turnover between Vietnam and the US remained at a high level.

By 2012, the total import-export turnover of goods 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, exports reached 19.66 billion USD and imports reached 4.83 billion USD.

Vietnam's trade balance in goods with the United States has always maintained a large surplus. Specifically, in 2010, Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States exceeded 10 billion USD, 26.5% higher than the previous year. By 2012, thanks to Vietnam's export turnover to the United States being 4 times higher than the country's import turnover from this market, Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States had reached 14.8 billion USD.

In the first 6 months of 2013, the United States continued to be the largest market for importing Vietnamese goods with a total value of nearly 10.9 billion USD, up 17.2% over the same period last year and accounting for 17.4% of the country's total export turnover. On the other hand, the total value of Vietnamese goods imported from the US market reached 2.6 billion USD, up 10.6% over the same period last year.

Statistics from Vietnam Customs show that the United States is the largest consumer market of Vietnamese goods and the 7th largest supplier of goods to the Vietnamese market in 2012. However, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database, the two-way trade value between Vietnam and this market accounts for only a very small proportion of the total import-export turnover of the United States (less than 1%). For the United States, Vietnam is the 23rd largest partner in exporting goods and the 40th largest partner in importing goods from this market.

For many years, textiles and garments have been the leading export item of Vietnam to the US market 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 total export turnover of textiles and garments of the whole country. In addition, items such as wood and wood products, seafood, and footwear of all kinds are also key items, contributing a large proportion to Vietnam's total export turnover to the US.

Regarding imports, the main items the United States exported to Vietnam in recent years include machinery, equipment and spare parts; computers, electronic products and components; cotton of all kinds, raw plastics, animal feed and raw materials; soybeans, etc.

Theo.vov - PH