Domestic producers, EU trade pact boost export growth

The domestic sector remained a driver of export growth, earning US$71.8 billion, up 20.2 percent and accounting for 35.4 percent of total exports. Meanwhile, the foreign-invested sector raked in US$131 billion, including crude oil sales, down 2.9 percent and making up 64.6 percent of the total.

Thirty exports yielded more than US$1 billion each, accounting for 91.3 percent of total exports. Five saw over US$10 billion in turnover each, accounting for 59.8 percent, according to the data.

As one of the country’s biggest exports, rice sales increased 12 percent in value, reaching US$2.46 billion. Rice exports to some EU countries skyrocketed in August, the first month of the new EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), with those to Spain soaring 219.9 percent and to France 145.8 percent. The trade pact gives Vietnam a tariff-free rice export quota of 80,000 tonnes a year.

Seafood exporters are also benefitting from the new trade agreement. Shrimp exports to the EU bloc rose nearly 16 percent year-on-year in August to US$58.8 million since the 4.2 percent duty on giant tiger prawn was eliminated, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP). VASEP said rising exports of shrimp to the bloc would contribute to a total shrimp export growth of eight percent to US$3.6 billion.

The trade pact has helped lower the prices of Vietnamese fruit, increasing their competitiveness with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and China.

From August 1 (when the EVFTA took effect) to August 31, authorized organizations issued almost 15,000 sets of certificates of origin (C/O) form EUR.1 with a turnover of US$700 million to 28 EU countries.

Items granted C/O certificates are mainly footwear, seafood, plastics and plastic products, coffee, garments and textiles, bags, suitcases, vegetables, rattan and bamboo products.

Vietnam exported US$3.09 billion and US$16.58 billion more than it imported in September and the first nine months of 2020, respectively.