VN-Japan trade value up 16% in four months

WEDnesday - 31/05/2017 23:25    

Viet Nam-Japan trade turnover in the first four months of 2017 reached US$10.1 billion in the first four months of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 16%, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

 

Illustration photo

Viet Nam’s export and import value attained US$5.061 billion and US$5.062 billion, witnessing respective growths of 16.9% and 15.1%.

 

The two nations’ trade turnover attained US$29.6 billion in 2016, up 4% against in 2015, according to the Viet Nam Customs. Viet Nam gained US$14.6 billion from exporting to Japan, up 3.9%.

Key Viet Nam’s export items to Japan included garment (US$2.9 billion, up 4.2%), machines, equipment and tools (US$1.5 billion, up 10.9%), aquatic products ((US$1.1 billion, up 6.2%), footwear (US$674.8 million, up 12.9%) and computers, electronics and spare parts (US$654 million, up 25.1%).

Viet Nam’s total import turnover from Japan was estimated at US$15 billion in 2016, up 4.7% with main products being computers, electronics and spare parts (US$2.8 billion, up 23.7%), automobile accessories and tools (US$788 million, up 6.3%), plastics (US$660 million, up 4%) and fabrics (US$637 million, up 12.3%).  

Two trade agreements

Two trade agreements between the two nations include the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership (AJCEP) Agreement and the Japan – Vietnam Economic Partnership Agreement (JVEPA).

According to the AJCEP which was signed on April 3, 2008 and took effect since August 15, 2008, Viet Nam has committed to eliminating 8231tariff lines (representing 88.6% of total chart) within 16 years with nearly 100 tariff headings which were reduced to 5% and about 10% of the remaining ones will be cut partly or have no commitment of rate reduction.

Regarding the JVEPA,  in the last year of the tax reduction roadmap (in 2026), which is after 16 years of implementation of this Agreement, Viet Nam has committed to eliminating 90.64% of the tariff lines and by the time the Agreement was effective, 29.14% of the tariff lines has been immediately deleted. The remaining ones are for CKD cars and other sensitive lines, which maintain the basic tariffs or do not reduce, accounting for 9% on the groups including: alcohol tobacco, some chemical products, explosives, rubber, cotton and steel…

Among the export value of US$29.3 billion to Japan, Viet Nam has granted Certificate of Origin preferentiality for the commodity worth US$5.1 billion. However, the proportion of taking advantage of preferentiality from the AJFTA and VJEPA only obtained 35%.