Hanoi (VNA) – Recovery of the world economy, including many majorexport markets of Vietnam, is a positive sign for the Southeast Asian nation’simport and export activities in the coming time.

Tran Thanh Hai, deputy head of the Ministryof Industry and Trade (MoIT)’s Foreign Trade Agency, said that totalexport-import turnover hit 178.04 billion USD in the first quarter of thisyear, up 15.5% year-on-year, resulting in a trade surplus of 8.08 billion USD.

Exports performed particularly well, withan estimated value of 93.06 billion USD, reflecting a 17% year-on-year growth,while imports reached 84.98 billion USD, representing a 13.9% increase.

In this quarter, 16 commodities reported anexport value of over 1 billion USD each, accounting for 82.1% of the totalexport revenue, two higher than the 14 commodities recorded in the firstquarter of 2023.

The export turnover growth of the domestic-investedenterprise sector reached 26.2%, nearly double that of the foreign-investedsector, including crude oil (up 13.9%), demonstrating efforts made the domesticeconomic sector to maintain and expand export markets.

Meanwhile, there were 17 commodities withimport turnover of over 1 billion USD each, accounting for 76.1% of the total.

Bui Huy Son, head of the MoIT’s FinancingPlanning Department, said that Vietnam’s trade activities, especially export tokey markets in Europe and America, will face both challenges and opportunitiesthis year.

In addition to advantages for signed freetrade agreements (FTAs), demand of the world market in general and Europe andAmerica in particular is gradually recovering because inflation has beenexperiencing a downturn from the end of 2023 and is likely to approach thetarget level set out by central banks for 2024.

Those industrialised countries continue topromote strategies to diversify sources of supply, supply chains, and investmentswill help Vietnam become an important production and export centre in theglobal value chain. Meanwhile, the development of green economy, digitaltransformation, and circular economy of countries in Europe and America willalso open up many new cooperation opportunities as well as providing a lot ofcredit and technology support to Vietnam, added Huy.

MoIT Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tansaid that the sector will closely monitor market developments and changes inpartners' policies to propose appropriate solutions and develop a variety oftraditional and new export markets.

It will continue making the most of signedFTAs, speeding up negotiations and signing of new ones, diversifying marketsand supply chains, developing logistics services, and strengthening capacity ontrade defence./.