Surge in Orders
Immediately after the Lunar New Year holiday, businesses have started production. From the first days of the year, orders have been pouring in, forcing businesses to increase production pace to meet the deadlines.
Starting from the early days of 2024, 150 workers at Forimex Thinh Hoang Co., Ltd. (Ba Ria-Vung Tau) have been busy producing to meet the export orders to European, Japanese, Canadian, and American markets. Currently, the company has orders until the end of the second quarter of 2024. At the same time, they are also accepting additional furniture production for the domestic market. Mr. Vo Ngoc Tuong Linh – Director of Forimex Thinh Hoang Co., Ltd. said that they currently have many orders. To meet the delivery schedule, workers have started working overtime since the beginning of the year.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Luan, the founder of the Meet More coffee brand also shared that on the first working day after the Lunar New Year holiday (the 6th day of the new year), they promptly sent the goods to Cat Lai Port and directly shipped them to the Australian market. Two 40-foot containers, each containing about 18 tons of various types of coffee such as Arabica coffee, potato coffee, mango coffee, and salted coffee, will arrive in Australia about 18 days later. In addition, they are also urgently preparing one container to be shipped to the US market within January.
Busy businesses preparing for export orders
“These are the orders that we signed at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, and then exported immediately after the Lunar New Year holiday. Currently, workers have returned to the factory and started working to complete the orders on time. In 2024, Meet More will focus on the Chinese market. The positive signals at the beginning of the new year are the motivation for the company to have more enthusiasm and determination for a year of many successes,” Mr. Luan shared.
Previously, on the New Year’s Eve of February 9th (the 30th day of the previous lunar year), at Tan Cang Cat Lai (Ho Chi Minh City), Tan Cang Saigon Corporation issued a command to start the spring of 2024. Among them, the export goods were loaded on the Uni Perfect ship of Ever Green company, with a load capacity of 19,308 tons and nearly 1,618 TEUs. The goods were electronic components – the main items that contributed to the export turnover of Ho Chi Minh City last year, reaching over 42 billion USD.
Strong Export Growth compared to the same period
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the import-export turnover in the first month of 2024 increased sharply, reaching over 64 billion USD, an increase of nearly 38% compared to the same period last year. Specifically, the export increased by 42%, about 33.6 billion USD. This is also the highest increase since April 2022 (33.26 billion USD).
The export growth is driven by the two main sectors of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and processing industry, with an increase of nearly 97% and 38%, respectively. For example, with rice, in the first half of January 2024, Vietnam exported 194,074 tons of rice, with a turnover of 134.57 million USD. Compared to the same period in 2023, the volume of rice exports decreased by nearly 32,000 tons, however, the turnover increased by nearly 20 million USD. Despite the decrease in volume, the increase in turnover led to a high increase in the average value of rice exports compared to the same period last year, at 36.68%.
With the fruit and vegetable sector, in January 2024, the export turnover of fruits and vegetables reached about 458.741 million USD, an increase of 89.2% compared to the same period in 2023. It is worth noting that many fruit and vegetable export orders have increased in the first quarter of 2024, in which durian is still very promising, opening up positive signals for the industry.
Regarding the forecast for import-export situation in 2024, the Import-Export Department informed that in 2024, the world situation is predicted to continue to have major and unpredictable changes with many opportunities and challenges intertwined. Specifically, the trend of anti-globalization is rising strongly, and protectionist policies are reemerging in many countries in various forms. Developed countries are paying more and more attention to consumer safety, sustainable development, and climate change prevention, from which they are establishing new standards and regulations for imported products.
Despite that, there are still many opportunities for export recovery and growth in 2024 as the issue of high inventories in many countries is gradually being resolved. The Import-Export Department expects the target for import-export in 2024 to increase by over 6% compared to 2023. The trade balance continues to have a surplus.
