According to Vo Tan Thanh, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Thailand is Vietnam’s largest trading partner among ASEAN countries, with bilateral trade reaching over VND 17.5 billion in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent.
Vietnam’s trade with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar also grew in 2018, he said at the Southeast Asia Outbound Investment Forum.
Vietnam ran a trade deficit with Thailand because it imported a lot of machinery and equipment, raw materials for domestic production and automobiles, he said.
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Vo Tan Thanh, vice president of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, speaks at the Southeast Asia Outbound Investment Forum in HCM City. |
In 2018, Thailand was the biggest source of automobiles for Vietnam, he added.
Vietnam’s exports to these markets include mobile phones and components, computers, electronic products and components, iron and steel, machinery and equipment, vehicles and spare parts, garment and textile products, crude oil, and gasoline.
As of last year, Thailand was the ninth largest investor in Vietnam out of 130 countries and territories with USD 10.5 billion in 528 projects.
Laos ranked 52nd with USD 70 million, Cambodia was 56th with over USD 64 million and Myanmar, 99th with one project worth USD 800,000.
Vietnamese companies have invested in all these countries, including nearly USD 26 million in Thailand.
They have invested over USD 3 billion in Cambodia to make the country among the five largest foreign investors in there.
Vietnam was the seventh largest foreign investor in Myanmar with nearly USD 2 billion in 70 projects.
Investment and trade ties between Vietnam and these countries remain short of their potential and they are making efforts to set this right.
Vietnam and Thailand for instance have set a target of increasing their trade to 20 billion USD by 2020, while Vietnam and Laos target 10 percent growth in trade this year.
To provide local companies seeking to expand operations in Southeast Asia with more information about these markets, VCCI in collaboration with Tilleke & Gibbins, a leading Southeast Asian law firm, held the first Southeast Asia Outbound Investment Forum.
Source: VNA