Vietnam gets over US$ 3 billion wood export surplus in the 1st quarter of 2021

According to the General Department of Customs, Vietnam’s export turnover of wood and wood products in March 2021 reached a new record of US$ 1.51 billion, up 54.5% over the previous month and 53.4% over the same period last year. Specifically, the export turnover of wood products reached US$ 1.17 billion, up 69.9% over February 2021 and up 75.99% over March 2020.

Generally, in the first quarter of 2021, Vietnam’s export turnover of wood and wood products reached US$ 3.788 billion, up 44.9% compared to the same period the year before, in which the export turnover of wood products reached US$ 2.944 billion the export turnover of wood products reached US$ 2.944 billion, up 85.7%.

Regarding the market, during the first quarter of 2021, the US continued to be the biggest export market for Vietnam’s wood and wood product, reaching US$ 2.29 billion, up to 77.02% over the same period last year, accounting for 61% of the total export turnover of wood and wood products of the whole industry (this proportion in the same period in 2020 was 50%).

The three markets sequentially behind the US are all Asian markets: China, Japan and Korea, with increasing rates in the order of 8.22%, 9.71% and 8.98%.

Apart from the US with high growth rate and a large proportion, Vietnam's wood and wood products export turnover to Canada, France, Australia and the Netherlands also increased strongly in the first quarter of this year.

In the opposite direction, Vietnam’s import turnover of wood and wood products in March 2021 to Vietnam also came back sharply, reaching US$ 259 million, up 35.6% over the previous month. With the import result in March, for the first quarter of 2021, the import turnover of wood and wood products reached nearly US$ 729 million, up 37.2% over the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2021, most markets supplying wood and wood products to Vietnam increased strongly. Especially the Chinese market, reaching US$ 225 million, increasing by over 50% compared to the first quarter of 2020.

Moreover, wood importation from Thailand, Chile, Brazil, France, Newzealand, Laos also increased strongly. Meanwhile, the import turnover of the US, Vietnam’s second-largest supply market, only experienced a slight increase of 1.92% over the same period last year.

Generally, in the import and export of wood and wood products, Vietnam had a trade surplus of US$ 3.059 billion in the first quarter of 2021. To be specific, FDI enterprises had a trade surplus of US$ 1,821 billion (in the first 3 months of the year, FDI enterprises’ wood and wood products reached US$ 2.02 billion in exportation and nearly US$ 297 million in importation).

From the mentioned results, as the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association (Viforest) stated, although heavily affected by global purchasing power as well as domestic production, export turnover Vietnam's wood and products are growing impressively, reaching 6th in terms of Vietnam's export turnover of merchandise/commodity group in the first quarter of 2021.