According to statistics released by the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the country’s total import and export value last year underwent a surge of 7.6 per cent to US$517.26 billion in comparison to the figures from 2018.

Of the total, the value of export commodities stood at an estimated US$264.19 billion, an increase of 8.4 per cent, while imports came to US$253.07 billion, up 6.8 per cent from 2018.

With these figures, the nation’s import-export scale saw robust growth with US$36.69 billion, much lower than the level of US$52.44 billion achieved in 2018.

During 2019 the balance of trade for goods enjoyed a surplus of US$11.12 billion, with the country’s trade surplus increasing by 62.9 per cent from the previous year.

Most notably, China retains its position as the largest market among more than 200 countries and territories that Vietnam has established trade ties with turnover between the two countries reaching US$100 billion for the second consecutive year.

Indeed, the total import-export turnover between the two countries in 2019 hit US$116.866 billion, of which the nation’s exports and imports were at an estimated US$41.414 billion and US$75.452 billion, respectively.

Throughout the year, import-export turnover between Vietnam and China enjoyed an increase of over US$10 billion compared to 2018’s figure of US$106,706 billion.

In total, the Chinese market accounted for 22.6 per cent of Vietnam’s total import-export turnover in 2019, with the country's exports to the market undergoing a slight increase.

Last year, the country’s import turnover from China increased by US$10.014 billion, while exports rose by just US$150 million. Therefore, the nation recorded a large trade deficit of over US$34 billion with China. VOV