The Ministry of Industry and Trade forecasts that in 2021, Vietnam's total import-export turnover will reach $640-645 billion and the trade balance will remain at a slight trade surplus.

These are the efforts of enterprises after overcoming difficulties from the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic to maintain and restore production. In particular, industries with strengths such as textiles and garments, leather and footwear, despite being heavily affected by the epidemic, still achieved their targets earlier than expected.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, from now until the end of the year, businesses in all industries can regain the same growth rate as before the epidemic. In addition, traditional industries with export strengths such as phones, electronics, machinery and components... can also achieve export growth of 15-25% this year.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, after 3 years of implementing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and more than 1 year of implementing the Vietnam-EU Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the impact from these agreements for export activities are very clear, especially with the market where Vietnam has never signed an FTA.

For example, thanks to the CPTPP, exports to Canada, Mexico and Peru all have growth rates of 25-30%/year.

Particularly for the EU market, Vietnam has enjoyed universal tariff preferences (GSP), but the EVFTA Agreement is expanding the incentive mechanisms of a sustainable nature, because GSP is a unilateral mechanism and will be shrinks over time, as the economy develops.

However, with the EVFTA Agreement, this is a bilateral commitment and incentives with long-lasting value, which both sides must implement. Therefore, in the long run, the value of the EVFTA Agreement is very large.

Currently, the rate of taking advantage of incentives from the EVFTA Agreement through the issuance of certificates of origin (C/O) form EUR1 is up to approximately 20%, which is a very significant rate.

Many items exported to the EU currently have low tax rates because they are still enjoying GSP, so in some cases, businesses do not need to apply for C/O EUR1.

Moreover, for export shipments to the EU worth less than 6,000 Euro, enterprises are allowed to self-certify their origin. This is also a great advantage to help businesses not have to spend time and procedures to apply for C/O and still enjoy tax incentives.

However, the biggest difficulty of enterprises today, first of all, is the problem of labor. In particular, in the southern region, calling for workers to return to work faces many difficulties and businesses have not been able to restore 100% of their capacity.

In addition, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the world's raw material market and logistics services are both increasing costs. These factors will put pressure on costs for businesses.

Another problem, Vietnam has made an adaptive stance to live together, safely with the epidemic. However, the COVID-19 epidemic has not completely ended, so localities still have to apply anti-epidemic measures.

If localities do not fully comply with the Government's Resolution 128/NQ-CP on the temporary regulation "Safely adapting, flexibly, effectively controlling the COVID-19 epidemic" as well as taking measures to combat the epidemic, beyond the scope, beyond the necessary level will psychologically affect the business as well as the confidence of investors.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade hopes that, with Resolution 128/NQ-CP and the Government's drastic direction, local anti-epidemic measures can both ensure the safety of people's health and life, while also ensuring the safety of people's health and lives. Not causing too much impact on production activities are the issues businesses are most concerned about to maintain production, import and export in the near future.

According to VNA