The year 1995 was marked by a series of memorable events for Vietnam, setting the stage for the country to open up and integrate deeply into the world, including joining ASEAN and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), submitting an application to join the WTO, and normalizing Vietnam-US relations.
The country has gradually implemented a foreign policy of multilateralisation and diversification over the past 30 years, and has tapped cooperative opportunities in trade, investment, integration, and technology transfer to boost economic development.
Strong and impressive changes in its economy have been seen, particularly regarding trade, with records broken in import and export revenue, according to data analysis from the General Department of Vietnam Customs.
Notably, in 2022, trade revenue hit a new record of $700 billion.
Milestones
Total import and export revenue hit $100 billion for the first time in 2007.
Four years later, in 2011, the figure doubled to top $200 billion.
In 2015, trade turnover reached $300 billion.
Two years later, the country hit a new record of $400 billion in import and export turnover.
The figure then rose by $100 billion every two years, to $500 billion in 2019 and $600 billion in 2021.
Vietnam has continually been on a list of 30 countries and territories posting the largest import and export value, according to the WTO.
Since 2019, it has ranked second within ASEAN in terms of trade value.
In 2021, it ranked 23rd in the world in terms of export value and 20th in terms of import value.
Vietnam Customs’ role
Together with the country’s economic development, its customs sector has continually innovated to fulfil its role as a center of trade transaction activities.
A representative from Vietnam Customs said that, since 1995, it has applied information technology on data analysis and improved customs services.
The agency will study the experience of its counterparts in countries such as South Korea, Japan, and the US, to improve the effectiveness of its customs data analysis and to build a data system updating information relating to cross-border transactions and transport.
