Vietnam Today

Under the “Promoting the application of information technology and digital transformation in trade promotion activities in the 2021- 2030 period” project, which has been approved by the government, all trade promotion organizations and businesses, cooperatives, and business households will exploit shared platforms and share data with the Digital Trade Promotion Ecosystem more than 500,000 times by 2025. Ten key export industries will also be connected to the database of ten key export markets.

After seven years of negotiations, Vietnam and South Korea signed an agreement on social insurance on December 14. Vietnamese workers will be able to continue to pay insurance contributions when going to work in South Korea and likewise for South Korean workers coming to Vietnam. This is Vietnam’s first comprehensive bilateral social insurance agreement.

Vietnam’s total import-export turnover reached $602 billion in the first eleven months of 2021, with a trade surplus of nearly $1.5 billion posted. The US remained Vietnam’s largest export market, with turnover of more than $86 billion, while China was again the largest import source, with more than $99 billion.

According to a World Bank (WB) macroeconomic update on Vietnam in December, the country saw breakthroughs in a number of economic indicators during November, such as industrial production, trade, investment, and services. The government needs to offer fiscal policy support to boost demand from the private sector and help economic recovery.

The government’s economic recovery support program, expected to be of unprecedented scale and including a fiscal policy package accounting for between 5 and 7 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP, as recommended by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), will strengthen confidence in the market and among investors, creating momentum for the economy and growth in the stock market.

Economic support packages totaling VND843.84 trillion ($36.72 billion) are expected to be submitted to the National Assembly at its extra-ordinary session at the end of the month. Analysts have said, however, that a strong breakthrough in the stock market should not be expected based on these packages.