Despite being adversely affected by the international environment and natural disasters, and complicated domestic storms and floods, the total import and export turnover for the whole year 2025 reached 930.1 billion USD, an increase of 18.2% compared to 2024; the trade balance had a surplus of 20 billion USD, marking 10 consecutive years of trade surplus since 2016, further affirming the role of exports as one of the important drivers of economic growth.
However, Vietnam's export growth still faces many internal challenges such as large dependence on the foreign-invested enterprise sector, dependence on imported raw materials of many industries, brand building capacity and the ability to synchronously meet high standards of the international market are still limited, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Import and export in 2026 takes place in a context of intertwined opportunities and challenges. In which, challenges come from the context of global trade continuing to fluctuate rapidly and unpredictably due to the impact of geopolitical tensions, the increasing trend of trade protectionism, tariff policy adjustments of major economies and the process of global supply chain restructuring.
In addition, increasingly high requirements for technical standards, green standards, sustainable development and the impact of digital transformation and artificial intelligence are posing many new challenges for production and export activities.
In that context, to complete the target of export growth in 2026 of over 15% as directed by the Government, equivalent to 546-550 billion USD/year; an average of about 45-46 billion USD per month, it requires high efforts from ministries, localities and the business community.
According to Mr. Tran Thanh Hai - Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade), entering a new stage of development, when the scale of import and export has reached unprecedentedly high levels, structural limitations are also increasingly revealed. Reality shows that broad growth is no longer roomful, while shocks from the market, policies and global supply chains are increasingly unpredictable.
It is in that context that the requirement to shift the import and export growth model from "quantity" to "quality", from expanding scale to improving added value and internal capacity, is no longer an option, but has become an inevitable requirement for the economy" - Mr. Tran Thanh Hai emphasized.
In that context, Mr. Hai said that the requirement for the next period is to shift the import and export growth model in depth, based on technology, science, innovation; develop basic industries; proactively source raw materials and diversify export markets. Along with that is to promote negotiation of new Free Trade Agreements and upgrade existing FTAs.
Another important direction emphasized is the development of cross-border e-commerce, associated with innovation in trade promotion, brand building and meeting new standards on environment and emissions. At the same time, the logistics and cost problem also needs to be fundamentally solved, improving the competitiveness of Vietnamese goods.
