In 2025, commodity exports continued to be a prominent bright spot of the economy, making an important contribution to growth and macroeconomic stability. Vietnam's total export turnover of goods reached about 475 billion USD, an increase of 17% compared to 2024; the trade balance maintained a trade surplus of over 20 billion USD.
Despite many positive results, Dr. Can Van Luc - Member of the Prime Minister's Policy Advisory Council, Chief Economist of BIDV - believes that Vietnam's export structure is also revealing points that need to be considered.
Some high-tech commodity groups such as electronics and electronics continue to increase in proportion, while traditional industries such as textiles and garments, and footwear, although still growing, are showing signs of slowing down in market share. Notably, the large dependence on some key markets makes the response space of Vietnamese businesses more limited when these markets fluctuate. Service import and export is a bottleneck in the contribution of the foreign trade sector to economic growth" - Dr. Can Van Luc assessed.
Dr. Can Van Luc believes that promoting import and export in the coming period cannot only stop at the goal of increasing turnover, but needs to strongly shift to improving the quality of growth; requiring a synchronous combination of trade policies, export promotion, logistics development, financial support and especially improving the quality of institutions and the implementation stage.
We cannot only rely on commodity exports, but must consider service exports as an important pillar, while improving the internal strength of domestic enterprises to participate more deeply in the value chain" - Dr. Can Van Luc emphasized.
With the goal of high export growth, Mr. Pham Tan Dat - Head of Logistics Department, Vietnam E-commerce Association - said that Vietnamese goods are having a new export space with great potential.
According to Mr. Pham Tan Dat, since 2015, the Association has coordinated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, localities and the banking system to take advantage of the e-commerce channel in supporting Vietnamese goods exports. Over many years of implementation, the potential and advantages of e-commerce in exports are increasingly recognized more clearly.
Accordingly, e-commerce not only helps increase the number of orders, but more importantly, it opens up the possibility of accessing new markets - markets that if followed the traditional promotion path will take a lot of time, resources and costs. With digital platforms, Vietnamese goods can reach international buyers faster, more flexibly, especially suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Not only is it a sales channel, e-commerce also helps businesses tell stories about Vietnamese products and brands. Industries such as coffee, cocoa, and deep-processed agricultural products can take advantage of digital platforms to convey values, origins, product stories, thereby increasing export value instead of just competing by price.
Vietnam is a market that cross-border e-commerce platforms are particularly interested in. Not only stopping at selling goods in the domestic market, these platforms are focusing on supporting Vietnamese goods exported to the world. This is a great advantage if businesses and management agencies know how to take advantage of it properly.
In the context of increasingly clear requirements for increasing added value, market expansion and national brand building, e-commerce is no longer an additional option, but is gradually becoming an indispensable component in Vietnam's export strategy. The remaining issue is how to better utilize this tool, closely link businesses, platforms and support policies, so that Vietnamese goods can go further on the global trade map" - Mr. Pham Tan Dat assessed.
