Vietnam recorded a trade surplus of US$1.86 billion in October, leading to a surplus of US$9.01 billion in the first 10 months of 2019, up 23% year-on-year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC).

Data: GDVC. Chart: Nguyen Tung. Unit: billion USD.

Statistics of the department show that Vietnam’s external trade in October reached U$46.61 billion, up 3.3% from September, of which exports were US$24.23 billion, up 3.7%, and imports US$22.37 billion, up 2.39%.

In the first 10 months of the year, the country’s external trade hit US$428.63 billion, up 8% compared to the same period in 2018. Upon breaking down, exports totaled US$218.82 billion, up 8.3% year-on-year, and imports reached US$209.81 billion, representing an increase of 7.7%.

In October, foreign-invested companies had a total import-export value of US$28.93 billion, including $16.44 billion in exports, up 1.4% from September, and US$12.48 billion in imports, down 4%.

Between January and October, foreign direct investment (FDI) companies recorded a trade turnover of $271.13 billion, accounting for 63.3% of the entire country and up 4.3% from the same period last year. Meanwhile, the domestic sector recorded a trade value of US$157.5 billion, or 36.7% of Vietnam’s total trade revenue, up 14.9% year-on-year.

The FDI sector posted exports of US$149.83 billion in the January – October period, up 4.8% year-on-year, accounting for 68.5% of Vietnam’s exports, while the sector imported goods worth US$121.3 billion during the period, up 3.7% year-on-year, accounting for 57.8% of total imports.