Trade relations highlight Vietnam-Singapore strategic partnership

Vietnam’s biggest exports to Singapore in July 2023, including machinery, equipment, mobile phones, components and spare parts of all kinds, increased by 1.22 percent over the same period last year

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Singapore has become the fifth largest ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the 15th biggest world trade partner of Vietnam. Bilateral trade grew steadily in recent years, reaching US$9.1 billion in 2022, up 11.6 percent compared with 2021.

The Vietnam Trade Office in Singapore’s data show that the bilateral trade value was SGD2.61 billion in July 2023 (down 8.39 percent compared to July 2022), including Vietnamese exports worth almost SGD560.7 million (down 26.2 percent) and Singaporean exports worth more than SGD2 billion (down 1.91 percent). This took the total to SGD16.8 billion plus in the first seven months of 2023 (9.41 percent less than the same period in 2022), including Vietnamese exports worth more than SGD3.7 billion (down 21.36 percent) and Singaporean exports worth almost SGD13.1 billion (down 5.35 percent).

According to the Vietnam Trade Office in Singapore, there are some positive signals for the Vietnamese-Singaporean trade, as it has recently improved monthly. Vietnam’s group of biggest exports in July 2023, including machinery, equipment, mobile phones, components and spare parts of all kinds, increased by 1.22 percent over the same period last year. Notably, rice and cereal exports reached a fairly high growth rate of 26.09 percent in recent months after India kicked off a ban on the export of non-basmati rice varieties on July 20, 2023.

Two-thirds of the remaining major exports experienced a negative growth, including reactors, steam boilers, machine tools and related spare parts (down 2.45 percent), and glass and glass-based products (down 53.3 percent).

Electronics manufacturing

At the July-5 talk between Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien and Singaporean Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng in Hanoi, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said the two ministries need to efficiently realize memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed by the two ministries and relevant authorities, as well as cooperation agreements signed by Vietnamese and Singaporean governments, in order to promote bilateral trade.

Dien suggested that Singapore foster collaboration with Vietnam in the fields of quarantine and testing in order to gradually conform to standards between the two countries and reduce risks in exporting agricultural and forestry products, seafood and processed food. He called on Singapore to share experience in policy making and human resource training in renewable energy, especially policies for renewable and clean energy export. He emphasized the need to enhance close coordination in multilateral economic and trade cooperation institutions and uphold advantages of two new-generation free trade agreements to which both nations are signatories, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).