Vietnam Likely to Run $6B Trade Deficit with China in H1
Vietnam is estimated to have incurred $6 billion trade deficit with China in the first half of this year, making up 89.55% of the Southeast Asian nation’s sum estimated by the General Statistics Office on June 22.
The bilateral trade has rise to $11.6 billion in H1, in which, Vietnam’s exports have surged 45.2% on-year to $2.8 billion and its imports have soared 30% to $8.8 billion.
The recent yuan appreciation will help narrow China’s trade surplus with many nations, including Vietnam, Bui Kien Thanh, a leading independent economist, said.
Thanh, however, warned that local importers will seriously be affected by the revaluation, which makes Chinese goods more expensive.
Vu Dinh Anh, deputy director of the Institute for Market and Pricing under the Ministry of Finance shared the same opinion with Thanh that the rising prices of Chinese commodities will put more pressures on Vietnam’s inflation as Vietnam spend billions of dollars on importing machinery and equipment, and materials from China annually.
China has remained Vietnam’s largest trading partner for years but the latter has incurred an annual huge trade deficit with the former during the period with the peak of $11.5 billion in 2009, representing 93.9% of Vietnam’s total.
Rubber, coal, cassava products and crude oil were Vietnam’s export staples to China while machinery and equipment, cloth and petroleum products were its main imports.
Vietnam and China are trying to raise the bilateral trade to $25 billion this year from $21.35 billion in 2009. (VNS)
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