According to statistics of the Vietnamese trade office in South Africa, Vietnam shipped USD 724.3 million worth of goods to South Africa, down 3.7 percent year on year, but its imports from the country surged 59.5 percent to USD 386.4 million.
The office’s head Dao Manh Duc attributed the drop in Vietnam’s exports to falling shipments and value of mobile phones and parts by foreign-invested enterprises in the country. As the biggest staple in Vietnam’s exports to South Africa, those products brought home only USD 227 million in 2018, down 22.2 percent.
Footwear and computer-electronic goods are two other main items in Vietnam’s export to South Africa, earning USD 108.8 million and USD 96.2 million, respectively, last year.
It is noteworthy that coffee shipment value saw an impressive increase of 108.4 percent last year to USD 17.3 million. However, pepper suffered a decrease of 37 percent to USD 9.2 million.
The big increase in Vietnam’s imports from South Africa was driven by a 46.9 percent growth in fruit and vegetables and a 35.5 percent rise in wood and wood products.
Meanwhile, metal, the main item in Vietnam’s imports from South Africa, saw a drop of 3.3 percent in value to USD 89.7 million.
Vietnam’s purchase of metal, machinery-tools and steel products fell significantly, with decreases of 88.2 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
Following South Africa, Egypt is the second largest trade partner of Vietnam in Africa, with bilateral trade going up 36.6 percent in 2018 to USD 439 million.
Vietnam’s trade with 53 out of 55 African countries was estimated at USD 6.6 billion in 2018, with export value approximating USD 3 billion, up 10 percent year on year, according to statistics of the Department of Asian-African Markets under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Source: VNA