Binh Duong and Thai Nguyen exceeded Bac Ninh on exports

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Finishing 2016, Bac Ninh was the second largest export province of the country, far exceeding the next provinces which were Thai Nguyen and Binh Duong, but in January, 2017, the situation was reversed.

Chart: T. Binh

5 key provinces

According to the update by the General Department of Vietnam Customs, till the end of January 2017, Ho Chi Minh city continued to be a leading province on exports of the whole country with turnover of $US 2.584 billion.

But notably, the export activities of the following provinces Bac Ninh, Binh Duong and Thai Nguyen were changed. Accordingly, Binh Duong and Thai Nguyen passed Bac Ninh to be the second and third largest export provinces of the country with respective turnovers of $US 1.627 billion and $US 1.525 billion, meanwhile Bac Ninh only reached $US 1.432 billion.

This was quite different from 2016, Bac Ninh still maintained its position as the second largest province on export of the country with turnover of $US 22.146 billion, exceeding the third province which was Thai Nguyen $US 2.509 billion and the third province Binh Duong nearly $US 2.9 billion.

However, closely monitoring the rules on exports and export structure of the provinces mentioned above in recent years, we will not feel shocked with the reversal of last January. Because, Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen mainly depend on telephone exports of the Samsung Group while the export turnover of telephones in every January and December is normally lower than other months in a year, thereby the export turnover of these two provinces in the above time is normally lower than Binh Duong.

The chart showing the comparison between the import turnover and export turnover of 5 key provinces in January, 2017, unit price: "$US billion". Chart: Thai Binh

For example, in January, 2016, Binh Duong also ranked No. 2 in the country on exports with turnover of $US 1.625 billion, more than $US 101 million dollars compared to Bac Ninh and $US 319 million compared to Thai Nguyen. In December, 2016, while Binh Duong reached $1.93 billion of turnover, Bac Ninh only reached $US 1.693 billion ($US 237 million lower than Binh Duong) and Thai Nguyen only reached $US 1.686 billion ($US 244 lower than Binh Duong)

However, in terms of the country’s exports in 2016, Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen Binh Duong still exceeded Binh Duong as mentioned above. On average in 2016, every month Bac Ninh reached $US 1.845 billion of export turnover, Thai Nguyen reached $US 1.636 billion of export turnover meanwhile Binh Duong only reached $US 1.605 billion of export turnover.

In addition to the provinces mentioned above, till the end of January 2017, the country only had one province which achieved export turnover of more than $1 billion that was Dong Nai province with an export turnover of $US 1.208 billion.

With a total turnover of $US 8.376 billion, the provinces and cities: Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Thai Nguyen, Bac Ninh and Dong Nai accounted for 58.4% of the country’s total export turnover in January / 2017.

Trade surplus maintained

Another notable point was that the number of 5 "billions of dollars” export provinces in the first months of 2017 with the familiar names mentioned above was also maintained in relative stability in recent years.

Concerning the correlation between the turnover of exports and imports of the 5 key provinces, except Ho Chi Minh City which was in trade deficit, the 4 remaining provinces maintained a trade surplus.

Specifically, in January, 2017, the Ho Chi Minh City trade deficit was $US 125 million. Meanwhile, in the opposite direction, Thai Nguyen was the province which had the largest trade surplus of $US 556 million, followed by Binh Duong with trade surplus of $US 527 million, Dong Nai with trade surplus of $US 275 million and Bac Ninh with trade surplus of $US 27 million. This is understandable because compared to 4 remaining provinces, Ho Chi Minh city is the most important gateway for consumer goods imports of the South and the whole country, while Binh Duong, Bac Ninh, Thai Nguyen and Dong Nai mainly import raw materials or machines and equipment for goods production for export.

Besides the 5 key export provinces, we should mention Hanoi city. Although Hanoi was not a prominent province in exports, it was the second largest export in the country in last January after Ho Chi Minh city with a turnover of $US 2.078 billion and accounted nearly 15.8% of the country’s total import turnover at the same time.

By Thai Binh/ Huyen Trang