Vietnam’s trade passes $1tn in 10 months, but imports are growing faster than exports
Vietnam’s goods trade reached an estimated $1.01 trillion in the first ten months of 2026, up 32.3% from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Agency of Foreign Trade. It is the first time the country has passed the $1 trillion mark. The agency puts exports at about $499 billion, up 27.4%, which is well ahead of the full-year target of 15-16% growth. The headline is accurate, but the details show a more mixed picture than the milestone suggests.
The figures hold together across sources. Viet Nam News and VietnamPlus report the same totals, and customs data reported by Saigon Giai Phong also says the trade turnover had exceeded the US$1 trillion milestone as of October 29. I also checked the arithmetic against earlier releases. Trading Economics puts the first nine months at $434.30 billion in exports and $453.72 billion in imports, a $19.42 billion gap. Adding the agency’s October estimates (turnover of $122.2 billion and a $6.8 billion surplus) gives roughly the $499 billion export figure and the $12.7 billion cumulative deficit it reports. The numbers are internally consistent, but they are still estimates and could be revised.
The less celebrated part is the deficit. Vietnam is still running a trade deficit of about $12.7 billion for the ten months, and October’s surplus was only the second in a row, after September’s $1.27 billion surplus, the first since November 2025. For comparison, the country ran a cumulative surplus of $20.53 billion in the first eleven months of 2025. By my calculation from the agency’s figures, imports have grown by roughly 37-38% this year against exports’ 27.4%. That pattern comes from the way Vietnam’s manufacturing works. Production materials made up nearly 94.1% of import value in January-May, so strong imports partly reflect inputs for future exports.
The sector split adds a second caution. In the first five months, the domestic sector ran a $20.8 billion trade deficit, while foreign-invested firms posted a surplus of nearly $7 billion. The agency says export growth came from both groups, but the draft strategy’s goal of lifting domestic firms to 28-30% of exports by 2030 and 38-40% by 2045 suggests they currently hold a smaller share. The article does not give today’s figure. The US remains the largest export market and China the largest source of imports, per Trading Economics, so the draft target of no single export market above 25% by 2030 would apply most to the US, if its share is above that level now.
The draft strategy to 2030 is ambitious and so far only a draft. It aims for average export growth of 15-16% a year and import growth of 12-13%, which would leave a sustained surplus of 3-6% of exports, rising to 7-10% by 2045. It also targets 89-90% of exports in processed and refined goods (87.4% now), high-tech products at about half of processed exports by 2030, and shipments of over $1 billion to more than 45 markets. The goal is to rank among the world’s ten largest exporters by 2045. Vietnam currently ranks 18th in the world for exports and 20th for imports. One tension stands out: imports are currently growing more than twice as fast as the strategy’s own target, so reaching a surplus would need a sharp change in trend.
For the fourth quarter, the ministry lists export promotion, market diversification and compliance as priorities, including early warning on trade defence investigations, tariff barriers, green standards and rules of origin. That list reads as a response to risk, and it matters because the US and EU are among the markets most likely to apply such measures to a fast-growing exporter.
What is established and what is not: the $1 trillion milestone, the export growth rate and the October surplus are reported by multiple outlets as estimates. The strategy is a draft, and the fall in import growth it assumes, the shift toward domestic firms and the reduced dependence on single markets are goals, not results.
Sources: Viet Nam News, VietnamPlus, Saigon Giai Phong, Tuoi Tre News, Trading Economics (September), Trading Economics (2025 surplus), Viet Nam News (January-May) and Vietnam Investment Review.
