Of the figure, Vietnam’s exports accounted for USD305 million, up 42.8 percent from one year ago and its imports from Australia were valued at USD290 million , a strong increase of 80.2 percent.
Australia has always been among the top 20 trade partners of Vietnam for the past several years.
Vietnamese dragon fruits have been exported to Australia. (Source: VNA)
In 2017, bilateral trade stood at USD6.45 billion, up 22.7 percent from 2016, with Vietnam exporting 3.28 billion USD worth of goods to Australia and importing USD3.17 billion.
Exports to Australia accounted for 1.5 percent of all Vietnam’s exports last year.
Vietnam has been enjoying a trade surplus with Australia, but the gap is reducing. From USD1.84 billion in 2014, the surplus dropped to USD816 million in 2015, USD403 million in 2016, and USD116 million in 2017.
Exports of Vietnam to Australia are mostly machinery parts, electronic equipment, footwear, textile-garment and seafood. It is noteworthy that nearly one third (31 percent) of Vietnam’s export value to Australia in 2017, or USD1.02 billion, came from mobile phones and parts, computers, and electronic goods and parts. Crude oil export to Australia went up 105 percent last year to USD262 million.
Meanwhile, Vietnam bought from Australia metals (USD628 million), coal (USD470 million), wheat (USD424 million) and cotton (USD296 million).
Australia is now the eighth largest exporter to Vietnam, while Vietnam is the 14th largest exporter to Australia, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).
The ministry said there will be good opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to promote the export of goods to the Australian market as Australia will cut 90 percent of import tariff lines in 2018 and 100 percent of them in 2020 under the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) roadmap./.