… diplomatic ties set the stage for U.S.-Vietnam trade partnership
Earlier this week, the U.S. and Vietnam marked the 15th anniversary of the diplomatic ties that normalized relations between the countries and set the stage for 2001’s Bilateral Trade Agreement extending U.S. most-favored nation status to Vietnam. The trade has grown dramatically this past decade. Last year’s two-way trade was valued at US$15.4 billion, maintaining 2008’s record level despite the global recession. U.S. merchandise exports to Vietnam actually increased by 11%, while agricultural exports were up 2.5% to a record $1.05 billion. A U.S. State Department fact sheet provides more factoids, including the note that bilateral trade has increased more than 3300% since 1995.
Of course, this is not just a two-party affair; the burgeoning trade is reshaping global markets. We looked to Datamyne maritime trade statistics for some context. According to Datamyne’s bill-of-lading information (January-June 2010) Vietnam is ranked eighth among the U.S.’s top sources for imports (China tops the list, no surprise). We searched the data for the U.S. imports in which Vietnam is strongest and found furniture accounting for a third of shipments in the first half of this year. Next we narrowed the list of the U.S.’s top country sources for furniture, and saw Vietnam move up in rank to the number 2 slot – although at 36,658 containers to China’s 314,559, it’s a distant second.
So who is buying the Vietnamese imports? Over the last six months, Rooms to Go led this fragmented market with just over 5%. The top importer of furniture from all sources, Rooms to Go buys almost 57% of its imports from China, while Vietnam accounted for just over 22%. We looked, too, at the individual BoLs to identify such suppliers as Timber Industries, Chien Furniture Manufacturing, and Thuan An Wood Processing, as well as sources from Indonesia, another up-and-comer in the global furniture market. You can see the top 5 results from our Datamyne searches here. You can get more granular information on U.S. furniture imports, or any other trade segment from Datamyne. Let us show you how with a free online demo: book it here.