Vietnam-Africa trade reaches 6.6 billion USD in 2018
Bilateral trade between Vietnam and African nations hit 6.6 billion USD in 2018, with Vietnam’s exports worth 3 billion USD, up 10 percent from the previous year.
Vietnamese rice has been favoured by African consumers.(Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Bilateral trade between Vietnam and African nations hit 6.6billion USD in 2018, with Vietnam’s exports worth 3 billion USD, up 10 percentfrom the previous year.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Asia-Africa MarketDepartment, Vietnamese products were shipped to 53 of 55 African countries,excluding South Sudan and Eritrea. Mostof the shipments were mobile phones and spare parts, computers and spare parts,garment and textiles, footwear, rice, coffee, pepper, cashew, seafood andbuilding materials.
South Africa was the largest importer of Vietnam in the continent in 2018,spending 724.3 million USD on purchasing Vietnamese products, followed by Egyptwith 439 million USD and Ghana with 278.3 million USD.
Last year, Vietnam’s imports from African nations fell 10 percent to some 3.6billion USD, helping reduce the trade deficit to 0.6 billion USD. The countryhad high demand for fuel, animal food, cotton, wood, copper and materials fordomestic processing and exports.
Although Vietnam-Africa trade ties have made giant stride in the past years, anarray of challenges face Vietnamese firms in the continent. Besides politicalinstability in some nations and fierce competition with China, Thailand andIndia, a shortage of strategies for African markets has hurt Vietnamesecorporations. Also, they are concerned about online payment scams by swindlersfrom Nigeria, Benin and Togo.
Despite this, the department foresees a bright outlook for Vietnamese exportsto Africa in 2019, where extreme weather and political instability have made ithard for countries to produce sufficient products for domestic consumption. Africancountries’ economic growth is forecast to continue expanding.. Local residentswill spend more, especially on seafood, garment and textile products andfootwear products of Vietnam’s strengths.
In addition, competition with foreign rivals is not a big problem when Vietnameseproducts are already favoured by many African customers, who have diverserequirements for quality of the imports.-VNA
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Vietnamese rice has been favoured by African consumers.(Photo: VNA) 
