Trade – Investment

The Embassy of Canada in Hanoi, in association with Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has held a conference to review Vietnam-Canada trade ties two years after CPTPP has come into force.

The Saigon Union of Trading Cooperatives (Saigon Co.op) has organized a meeting to summarize its business tasks and launch orientations for 2021.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a domestic market development project in association with the campaign of Vietnamese prioritizing Vietnamese goods in the 2021-2025 period.

As a result of the efforts of Vietnamese COVID-19 vaccine producers, the country expects to export the vaccines to selective markets in the near future.

In the first 15 days of March alone, the country's export turnover reached USD13.3 billion, with 4 groups of export goods earning a turnover of USD1 billion or more. This result has helped maintain an impressive rise in goods exports since the beginning of the year.

The market share of Vietnamese seafood in Japan’s total imports increased from 6.6% in January 2020 to 7% in January 2021, making the country the fourth largest seafood supplier to Japan.

Vietnam’s economy entered the moderately free category for the first time, increasing 2.9 points and 15 steps higher than 2020, according to the 2021 Index of Economic Freedom released by the Heritage Foundation.

Ho Chi Minh city received remittances worth USD6.1 billion in 2020, an increase of 15% compared to the previous year, Deputy Chairman of the city People’s Committee Duong Anh Duc said at a conference held on March 18.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises earned 68.52 billion USD from exports and imports in the first two months of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 31.5%, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Two more Vietnamese dairy firms were granted transaction codes by the Chinese General Administration of Customs (GAC) to export products to China, said the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Department of Asia-Africa Markets.

The Government leader has issued Decision 368 / QD-TTg approving the adjustment of the overall scheme for construction of the Mong Cai Border Gate Economic Zone until 2040.

The Ministry of Finance has held a conference to collect voters’ comments on Politburo member and Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, who is expected to be nominated as deputy of the 15th NA.

The Ho Chi Minh city People’s Committee has issued and carried out support programs for enterprises and key industrial products such rubber - plastic, foodstuff, and mechanical – automation in order to develop enterprises and key industrial products of the southern hub in the 2021 – 2025 period.

The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) and Alibaba.com, the global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform of the Alibaba Group, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on supporting Vietnamese firms to boost online export and organised an international e-commerce conference in Hanoi on March 16.

The latest figures of the General Department of Customs showed that in the first two months of 2021, two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and UAE totaled 809 million USD, a year-on-year increase of 58%.

In the first 10 days of March 2021, import and export activities at border gates in Mong Cai city continued to be active, in which agricultural exports increased sharply compared to the same period in 2020.

The Ho Chi Minh city Department of Transport has proposed a policy of investing in 15 key transport projects in the locality with a total capital of about 96 trillion VND (4.17 billion USD), including more than 32.1 trillion VND from the city’s budget.

The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) said it is making active preparations so that work on the passenger terminal T3 of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City can begin in October 2021.

Southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province is planning to develop three new industrial zones measuring 2,793ha in 2021-25.

Micro- and small-sized enterprises and those in business for less than three years were the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report on the pandemic’s impact on businesses in Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City and Lotte Properties HCMC, owned by Lotte Group of the Republic of Korea (RoK), have agreed to enhance their cooperation, especially in smart urban building.

The 13th National Party Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam has set out major tasks to develop the country.

The Decision No.575/QD-UBND was recently issued by the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) People’s Committee to green-light the program ‘Researching and Developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Applications in HCMC from 2020-2030’, in order to turn this advanced technology into one of the cores for establishing smart innovative urban areas and promoting its digital economy growth.

The Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that it will organize two fairs in 2021 to introduce products of craft villages and products of the One Commune One Product (OCOP) program in Thach That and Gia Lam districts.

(CPV) – State budget collection in February 2021 reached an estimated 97.2 trillion VND, bringing the figure for the first two months of the year to 286.7 trillion VND, equivalent to 21.3% of the annual estimate or a year-on-year rise of 0.6%, the Ministry of Finance reported on March 8.

(CPV) – Export and import turnover between Vietnam and the UK in January reached more than 657 million USD, a year-on-year increase of 78.57%, according to the Department of Europe – America Market, citing data from the General Department of Customs.

The Ho Chi Minh City Statistics Office said that the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in Ho Chi Minh City climbed 6 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2021 despite a fall of 24.6 percent in February.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has decided to impose self-defence measures on imported DAP and MAP fertilisers after a comprehensive review of their impact on the Vietnamese market in line with the law.

The US market of handicrafts and woodwork products is predicted to grow well and offer extensive room for Vietnamese firms to increase their share in it, heard an online conference held on March 5.

Vietnam’s consumer price index (CPI) in February was up 1.52% over the previous month and 0.7 percent year on year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).