Over the years, import and export have made great contributions to the country’s renovation. Export has become one of the main drivers of economic growth, contributing to macroeconomic stability, creating jobs, and improving people’s income and living standards. The open economy is associated with import and export activities.
Import activities make the economy diversified enough to meet consumption needs and develop production. Export activities contribute in many ways, directly increasing production value, indirectly promoting the development of related industries, raising the level of domestic production to meet the standards of the exporting country, improving the quality of goods and services. labor level.
Developing exports according to Vietnam’s sustainable and reasonable growth model over the past time has been a consistent and transparent policy of the Party and Government, always associated with the policy of international economic integration of the country. water and trade liberalization. The 8th Party Congress in 1996 determined “to build a new economy that integrates with the region and the world, with strong export orientation”. The document of the 11th Party Congress on the Strategy for Socio-Economic Development 2011-2020 requires tasks for the import-export sector in the new period, stating: “Diversify foreign markets, exploit effectively markets with free trade agreements and potential markets, rapidly increasing exports, reducing trade deficit in both size and proportion, striving to balance import and export. After that, the 12th Party Congress continued to affirm: ” Innovating the growth model to shift sharply from mainly relying on exports and investment capital to developing at the same time relying on both investment capital, exports and the domestic market. In Decision No. 2471/QD-TTg dated December 28, 2011 of the Prime Minister approving the Strategy for Import and Export of Goods for the period 2011-2020, with a vision to 2030, the strategic views are clearly stated:
a) Develop production to rapidly increase exports and at the same time meet domestic demand; make good use of the economy’s comparative advantages, improve efficiency, import-export competitiveness and restructure the economy towards industrialization, modernization, job creation and equilibrium. balance of trade.
b) Building and consolidating strategic cooperation partners for sustainable market development; harmoniously combine the immediate and long-term interests of the country, economic interests and political-foreign interests, proactively and independently in international economic integration.
c) Diversify import and export markets. Actively and actively participate in global production networks and value chains; focus on building and developing high-value-added, branded goods on domestic and foreign markets.
With the focus on the direction of the Party and the State, export development following Vietnam’s sustainable and reasonable growth model has increasingly affirmed its role in contributing to economic growth and effective exploitation. achievements of the economic integration process, specifically:
Firstly, Vietnam’s trade scale is getting bigger and bigger, surpassing 500 billion USD for the first time in 2019, reaching a record trade surplus ($10.87 billion). According to the WTO, in 2018, Vietnam ranked 26th in terms of export scale (ranked 3rd in ASEAN, after Thailand and Malaysia) and 23rd in import scale (ranked 2nd in ASEAN, after Thailand). with a number of export items ranked in the top 10 largest exporting countries in the world such as office equipment and telecommunications (9th), textiles (8th), clothing (4th). . Along with domestic consumption, exports have shown an important role as a pillar in growth, especially in the 2016-2020 period.
Second, export competitiveness is increasingly consolidated. Many of our country’s export products have important positions in the world’s export performance rankings. If in 2007, Vietnam only had 11 commodity groups with a turnover of over 1 billion USD, by the end of 2011, Vietnam had 21 items with export turnover of over 1 billion USD, accounting for 81% of total export turnover; By 2019 there are 32 items, accounting for over 90% of total export turnover.
Third, the import-export restructuring has become more and more active and focused on the core of industrialization. The structure of export goods continued to improve in the direction of reducing the crude export content (from 11.6% in 2011 to 1.6% in 2019), increasing the export of processed and manufactured products (from 63.46). % in 2011 to 88.33% in 2019). The export market structure has shifted towards multilateralization and diversification of export markets; The structure of export components has shown positive signs when the export of domestic enterprises has had a higher growth rate than that of foreign-invested enterprises.
Fourth, import control is becoming more and more effective, contributing to protecting domestic production, improving the independent and self-reliant capacity of the economy and balancing the trade balance. As a result, Vietnam has successfully moved from a country with a continuous trade deficit to a trade surplus in the last years of the 2016-2020 period with a trade surplus reaching a record level in 2019 of 10.87 billion USD.
In the coming time, on the basis of the achievements, in order to continue promoting sustainable import and export activities in the new context, contributing to promoting the process of restructuring, renewing the growth model, improving competitiveness of the economy, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is developing the “Project on restructuring the industry and trade sector for the period of 2021-2030”, at the same time assessing the implementation of the Import-Export Strategy. Import and export of goods for the period 2011-2020, with a vision to 2030, to promulgate the Import-Export Strategy for the new period.
In order to continue to develop export in a sustainable way, in the coming time, it is necessary to redefine the position and role of import and export markets in the new shifting trend associated with each product and each market. Along with that, calculate and develop scenarios for exploiting and developing markets according to advantageous commodity groups, especially to markets that already have FTA Agreements. In the immediate future, in order to effectively exploit the new generation FTAs in the context of increasing protectionist trends and complicated trade conflicts, state management agencies and the business community need to continue to implement specific solutions on the basis of a number of orientations as follows:
Firstly, continue to expand export markets to help Vietnamese enterprises deeply participate in regional value chains, improve export production capacity and competitiveness. At the same time, creating opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises to interact more with the world, have conditions to develop production and business activities and affirm their new position in the international arena.
Second, continue to shift the structure of export products in the direction of increasing the proportion of high value-added products. Specifically: reducing raw export content, increasing exports of processed products and industrial products, creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese goods to deeply participate in the global production and supply chain.
Third, apply production processes according to international standards for export products: develop and apply a system of national standards in harmony with international and regional standards for goods. export goods. Building capacity of testing organizations, certification bodies, meeting international standards to serve the assessment of conformity with national standards, international standards, regional standards and own standards for export goods.
Fourth, improve efficiency and innovate trade promotion methods, focus on goods with export advantages, potential markets and niche markets to open up new markets to diversify. export market. In addition, encouraging and supporting enterprises to build export products with national brands and build corporate brands. Completing policies to support enterprises in establishing and protecting their intellectual property rights in domestic and export markets.
Fifth, strengthen monitoring and research on policy developments and analyze impacts on Vietnam’s production and exports to make appropriate adjustments and responses. At the same time, promote early warning to take necessary measures to limit damage from trade remedies lawsuits by importing countries.
Sixth, to create a chain of links between enterprises participating in exporting, starting from enterprises providing input factors for production to commercial enterprises consuming products, helping enterprises to take the initiative. more in exports.
With the achieved results, along with the timely and close direction and orientation of the Government, in the coming time, we have enough grounds to believe that Vietnam’s import and export activities will achieve good results. more achievements, especially in the context of implementing new-generation free trade agreements, contributing to accelerating the process of restructuring, renewing the growth model and improving the competitiveness of the economy. economy, well implement the policy of improving the efficiency of the process of international economic integration set forth by the Party and State.
Steering Committee 35 Ministry of Industry and Trade (source of Portal of the Ministry of Industry and Trade)