Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnam has taken full advantage of the CPTPP togain strong growth in exports to Canada and Mexico, according to the Ministryof Industry and Trade (MoIT).

These are the two CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-PacificPartnership) members that have not yet signed bilateral free trade agreement(FTAs) with Vietnam.

In the first two months of this year, Vietnam’s exports to Canada rose by 20.39percent to 578 million USD year on year.

With over 37 million people, a high standard of living and an urbanisation rateat 80 percent, Canada is considered a potential market for many key exportitems of Vietnam, including textiles, footwear, seafood, tea, pepper, cashewnut, coffee and wooden furniture.

During the first two months, textile and apparel export value reached more than 100 million USD, up 5.86 percent year on year. The export value of mobile phonesand accessories surged by 104.22 percent to 122.09 million USD compared to thesame period last year.

Other products with strong growth in exports included the group of iron andsteel and plastic materials with rates of 153.69 percent and 354.06 percentyear on year, respectively.

Vietnam’s export value to Mexico reached 497.2 million USD in the first twomonths. Of which, many products gained high export value, including computers,electronic products and components (133.6 million USD), telephones andcomponents (122.6 million USD), shoes and sandals (47.5 million USD), textilesand garments (16.3 million USD), machinery, equipment and other spare parts (34.5million USD), vehicles and spare parts (35.2 million USD).

Assessing the implementation of FTAs to promote exports, especially the CPTPP, LuongHoang Thai, director of the MoIT’s Department of Multilateral Trade Policy,told the Dau tu (Investment) newspaper reported that Vietnam’s enterprises haveefficiently exploited markets with which Vietnam has not yet signed FTAs.

In fact, Vietnam’s enterprises have done more than expected, taking fulladvantage of the CPTPP, Thai said. In 2019, Vietnam gained high growth inexports from the CPTPP countries, especially Canada and Mexico, while theagreement came into effect on January 14, 2019.

The country gained a year on year growth of 26-29 percent in export value toCanada and Mexico last year, he said.

The CPTPP has partly contributed to the strong growth in exports of Vietnam sothe country had a trade surplus of 1.6 billion USD with the CPTPP market lastyear.

Before this agreement, Vietnam had a total trade deficit of 900 million USD withthis market, said Thai.

Meanwhile, the General Department of Customs said Vietnam still recorded atrade surplus of 1 billion USD in the first half of March 2020, even during thenovel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In the first half of March, Vietnam’s total trade value reached 21.47 billionUSD, including export value of 11.2 billion USD and import value of 10.3billion USD.

Therefore, the country achieved total trade value of 97.85 billion USD in theperiod from January 1 to March 15, up 4.4 percent year on year. It had a tradesurplus of 2.74 billion USD.

Of which, the total export value recorded $50.29 billion, up 6.8 percent andthe total import value was 47.55 billion USD, up 1.9 percent.

During the period from January 1 until March 15, goods with high export growthincluded phones and components (10.2 billion USD); computers, electronic productsand components (7 billion USD); machinery, equipment, tools and other spareparts (3.93 billion USD); seafood (1.26 billion USD); textiles and garments (5.88billion USD); footwear (3.42 billion USD); timber and wood products (2.1billion USD); and vehicles and spare parts (1.76 billion USD)./.