Overcoming difficulties, trying to find growth momentum

After a long period of high growth, import and export are facing many difficulties due to a decline in orders in many markets. However, ministries, branches and businesses are trying to find solutions to overcome difficulties and regain growth momentum for import and export.

Import and export is the bright spot

According to preliminary statistics released by the General Department of Customs, the export turnover of vegetables and fruits in the past eight months is estimated at 3.5 billion USD, up nearly 56% over the same period last year. This figure is even higher than the export turnover of vegetables and fruits of the whole of last year. Among the fruit and vegetable groups, durian and dragon fruit are the major contributors to this growth. Especially, durian export in 8 months accounted for 30% of total turnover.

Mr. Dang Phuc Nguyen, General Secretary of the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association, said: “The reason for the sharp increase in durian exports is that in May and June, during the harvest season of this fruit in the southern provinces, the export volume to the Chinese market increased dramatically. From August to the end of the year will enter the main harvest in the Central Highlands. As a result, output will skyrocket and durian exports will exceed $1 billion.”

For the whole year of 2023, it is likely that fruit and vegetable exports will reach the historic milestone of 5 billion USD. Experts say that, in the context of global inflation, in 2023, China will be the most potential destination of Vietnamese agricultural products thanks to its explosive demand, close geographical location, low logistics costs and risks. than other markets.

Vegetables and fruits are one of the bright spots in our country’s export product groups recently. In recent years, Vietnam’s import and export of goods has made strong progress in terms of scale and speed. The total value of import and export of goods in 20 years (period 2002-2021) of Vietnam has reached 5,146 billion USD. In particular, in the 10 years from 2012 to 2021 alone, the total import and export value of our country reached 4,110 billion USD, nearly 4 times higher than the import and export of the previous 10 years combined.

Explaining the recent import-export achievements, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien stated that Vietnam has a business system including FDI enterprises and domestic enterprises with production capacity and capacity. Good exports, in the context of world supply disruptions in both raw materials and production, causing shortages of all kinds of goods, we have opened at the right time, promoting businesses to develop and find markets. new.

In addition, businesses are effectively exploiting advantages from free trade agreements (FTAs) to boost exports; Traditional markets are fully exploited, new markets are opened.

According to trade experts, if in 2006, Vietnam’s economy ranked 50th in the world in terms of exporting goods and ranked 44th in terms of importing goods, then by 2021, the World Trade Organization (WTO) recorded an impressive increase in Vietnam’s ranking in terms of goods exports to 23rd and imports to 20th in the world. Currently, Vietnam is in the top 20 leading economies in terms of international trade.

Notably, from 2011 onwards, Vietnam has always been in a state of deficit, continuously with a trade deficit of up to billions of USD, the largest deficit recorded was up to 18.02 billion USD in the past year. year 2008.

However, from 2012 until now, Vietnam’s trade balance of goods has changed direction, shifting to a continuous surplus (except for 2015, when there was a deficit worth 3.55 billion USD). In 2022, despite the negative impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the trade surplus for the whole year 2022 still reached a record number of 12.4 billion USD. As of August 15, the trade surplus reached 16 billion USD.

Notably, Vietnam has extensive trade relations with countries and territories around the world, focusing on major partners such as China, the United States, Korea, Japan, the EU, and ASEAN. ..

Assessing our country’s import-export achievements over the past time, economist Le Quoc Phuong, former deputy director of the Industry and Trade Information Center (Ministry of Industry and Trade), said: “It can be seen that, Export is now an important growth engine of our country’s economy. Before the reform and renovation, our country’s exports were very small, but since the renovation with many government policies on liberalization for trade and international integration, Vietnam’s exports have increased significantly. there are leaps and bounds. Today, we are one of the world’s export powers.”

Efforts to overcome difficulties

After the outstanding performance of 2022 and previous years, 2023 marked an extremely difficult year for import and export activities when both export and import directions declined due to the general difficult situation. According to the General Statistics Office, in the first eight months of 2023, the total import and export turnover of goods reached USD 435.23 billion, down 13.1% over the same period last year, of which exports decreased by 10%; imports decreased by 16.2%. The balance of trade in goods in the first eight months of 2023 is estimated to have a trade surplus of USD 20.19 billion.

Over the past time, in order to remove difficulties for import and export activities, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has continuously implemented trade promotion solutions. As a result, continuously in the last 3 months, export turnover has stopped the decline. Although the increase is low, it is also a good sign of the economy when businesses have found more new orders, and some difficulties have been solved.

In the opposite direction, the import turnover of goods of the whole country also showed signs of recovery. In the first half of August, the import turnover of goods reached US$14.2 billion, up 5.3% over the same period. Computers, electronic products and components are the largest group with a turnover of 4.1 billion USD. Machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts are the second “billion-dollar” commodity group with 1.87 billion USD. This is a good sign that export turnover will increase more in the coming time because the import of goods mainly focuses on groups of goods for production for export and domestic consumption.

In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will organize a series of events “Connecting the international supply chain of goods” (Viet Nam International Sourcing 2023) in Ho Chi Minh City in September 2023. This is an opportunity for import businesses to source goods from Vietnam through this important event.

Regarding key export industries, Le Hang, Communications Director of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), there are 3 factors that will determine the optimistic export scenario in the second half of the year.

Specifically, economic developments in major markets are forecast to be more positive in the second half of the year, combined with the fact that import demand in markets such as the United States and China is tending to increase again, as inventories increase. The warehouse is gradually decreasing and preparing orders for the year-end and New Year festivals.

The internal resources of businesses and the seafood supply chain production community are promptly supported in terms of capital and production and business conditions to maintain a stable supply of raw materials, ensuring availability of goods when the market demand.

Exported products have a stable supply and reduced costs, with competitive prices compared to other countries.

With that favorable scenario, seafood exports in 2023 will reach over 9 billion USD, down 15-16% compared to 2022.

Source: https://baomoi.com/vuot-qua-kho-khan-no-luc-tim-lai-da-tang-truong/c/46818080.epi