Us trade deficit by year

Vietnam trade surplus surges to US$2.09 billion in January

February 24, 2021 by hanoitimes.vn

The Hanoitimes – Phones and parts posted the largest export turnover among export items during January with US$6.1 billion, up US$3.4 billion against the same period of last year.

Vietnam recorded a trade surplus of US$2.09 billion in the first month of 2021, which remained a stark contrast from a deficit of US$300 million in the same period last year, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC).

Production for exports at Garment 10 Company. Photo: Pham Hung.

In January, the country’s trade turnover stood at US$55 billion, representing an increase of 48.2% year-on-year, in which exports rose by 55.1% to US$28.55 billion and imports by 41.3% to US$7.74 billion.

According to the GDVC, foreign-invested sector posted a trade surplus of US$3.98 billion during the period, coming on the back of a 70% surge in exports year-on-year to US$21.57 billion, or over 75% of the country’s total export turnover.

Phones and parts posted the largest export turnover among export items during January with US$6.1 billion, up US$3.4 billion against the same period of last year.

In addition, electronic products, computers and components earned an estimated US$3.89 billion, up 46.2% year-on-year; garments (US$2.66 billion); equipment and parts (US$3.26 billion).

The US, China, EU, South Korea and ASEAN are the five largest buyers of Vietnamese goods in January.

Vietnam, meanwhile, mainly imported goods from China worth US$9.16 billion, up 64.1% year-on-year and accounting for 34.6% of the country’s total imports. South Korean came in the second place (US$4.75 billion), followed by ASEAN (US$3.18 billion) and Japan (US$1.68 billion).

HCM City eyes 10 percent growth in export in 2021

February 24, 2021 by en.vietnamplus.vn

Shrimps processed for export (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City ’s Department of Industry and Trade has set the target to export 48.19 billion USD worth of products in 2021, a year-on-year surge of 10 percent.

Under its development plan for 2021 recently submitted to the municipal People’s Committee, the sector said import revenue is estimated at 56.47 billion USD for the whole year, up 11 percent against the previous year.

Besides, it eyed to reel in more than 835.68 trillion VND (36.29 billion USD) from retail sales and services revenues in the year, up 10 percent year-on-year.

The department said it will carry out necessary measures in a comprehensive fashion to branch out industry and trade, contributing to promoting economic recovery of the southern hub.

Earlier, HCM City set a goal of boosting the export of its key products this year and beyond via trade promotion activities and assistance to enterprises.

Head of the statistics office Huynh Van Hung said COVID-19 has been largely brought under control around Vietnam, resulting in the production sector exhibiting signs of recovery. Local enterprises, however, continue to face difficulties as many major trading nations are yet to open their markets.

He noted that enterprises are in need of diverse and long-term support relating to information on importers of materials and fuel, new markets and partners, and domestic consumption stimulus measures.

According to Nguyen Phuong Dong, Director of the municipal Department of Industry and Trade, despite facing myriad challenges, last year the city still saw five goods post export turnover in excess of 1 billion USD: computers-electronic products and components, with 17.8 billion USD; garment-textile 4.3 billion USD; footwear 2.2 billion USD; machinery-equipment-spare parts 2.2 billion USD; and other goods 6.9 billion USD. Together their export value accounted for 83.5 percent of the city’s total.

Key export markets remained China, the US, and Japan. China imported 10.5 billion USD worth of goods from HCM City last year, up 23.7 percent year-on-year. Exports to the US and Japan, meanwhile, stood at 6.7 billion USD and 2.8 billion USD, down 0.2 and 16 percent, respectively, year-on-year./.

VNA

Poland increases imports of Vietnamese coffee

January 19, 2021 by vov.vn

The MoIT’s Import and Export Department cited statistics released by the International Trade Center (ITC) which indicate that Poland’s coffee imports throughout the 2015 to 2019 period grew by an average of 6.5% annually, from 141,144 tonnes in 2015 to a total of 181,086 tonnes in 2019.

During the nine-month period, the Eastern European country’s coffee imports reached 136,300 tonnes with a value of US$448.71 million, showing an increase of 2.7% in volume and 6.7% in value from the same period in 2019.

Most notably, the average import price of coffee within the Polish market witnessed a surge of 3.9% to US$3,291 per tonne compared to last year’s corresponding period.

Throughout the reviewed period, Poland increased its coffee imports from the majority of its regular markets, although imports from both Germany and Uganda declined.

The figures indicate that the Eastern European nation increased coffee imports from Vietnam by 30.6% in volume and 27.1% in value, with the Vietnamese coffee’s market share in the European nation’s total imports accounting for 8.13%.

According to statistics released by the Import and Export Department, the domestic coffee price at the start of the year saw a decrease, with coffee prices falling from VND700 to VND800 per kilo.

Coffee industry seeks to weather COVID-19 crisis

February 24, 2021 by vov.vn

Since Vietnam joined the International Coffee Organization (ICO), the coffee industry has experienced three crises, with the first occurring in 1991 when the ICO removed the quota system, causing the price of Arabica coffee to drop from US$4,000 per tonne to US$3,000 per tonne.

The second happened in 2000 when the price of Robusta coffee dropped to US$400 per tonne, and the third took place last year when the price fell by between US$1,300 and US$1,400.

Addressing this thorny issue, almost all coffee businesses have participated in e-commerce trading platforms, marketing the products in London and New York. Private firms have also moved to swiftly set up websites in order to sell their coffee products online, with on-demand home delivery services witnessing rapid growth.

Aside from serving customers at coffee shops, take-away services have also been added to allow customers to increase the efficiency of doing business whilst simultaneously ensuring COVID-19 preventive measures are in place.

Several businesses have also invested in processing roasted, ground, and instant coffee as a means of catering to consumers’ diverse tastes. They have taken advantage of opportunities in exporting coffee beans to markets that the country has signed free trade agreements with.

Besides foreign firms such as Nestle, Olam, Ca phe Ngon, and Tata, several Vietnamese enterprises including Tin Nghia Corporation, Intimex Group, An Thai Company, and Viet My Company have poured capital into intensive processing by building instant coffee factories with popular names.

Most notably, small roasting facilities that specialise in processing specialty coffee for a chain of between 10 and 20 coffee shops by using coffee machines have also witnessed rapid growth.

Furthermore, Trung Nguyen Legend has recently launched its official brand store on Amazon, marking an important step toward bringing local coffee to the world via e-commerce platforms.

With regards to this strategic move, a representative of Trung Nguyen Legend says despite initial encouraging results, there remains a long journey ahead for the group as it attempts to popularize its brand globally, adding that e-commerce channels will develop further in line with consumer trends.

Despite an array of challenges facing the global economy caused by COVID-19, the coffee industry aims to expand markets, participate in supermarket chains in foreign countries to distribute processed coffee, and accelerate the sale of coffee through the e-commerce system.

The industry will boost consumption of coffee products within the domestic market and maintain its position as the world’s second largest coffee producer and exporter, whilst increasing the added value of coffee beans and stabilising the lives of 640,000 coffee growing households nationwide.

PM approves infrastructure building at Viet Han IP

February 25, 2021 by en.qdnd.vn

Invested by Fuji Phuc Long Development Co.Ltd, the 50-year project will be carried out in Hong Thai, Tang Tien communes and Nenh township in Viet Yen district, covering 50ha in the first stage.

The PM asked the provincial People’s Committee to be responsible for choosing investors to carry out projects in line with legal regulations regarding investment, bidding, land and real estate trade and relevant laws, with a priority given to projects using modern and eco-friendly technologies.

It must also implement compensation and site clearance, and transfer land use purpose to embark on projects as approved in terms of scale, location and progress.

The committee was also assigned to direct the provincial management board of IPs to ask investors to make deposit to ensure project implementation in line with the investment law.

The board and agencies concerned must also oversee the implementation of projects in line with laws on investment, land, environment, construction and real estate trade while attracting investment in IPs in accordance with approved planning.

Source: VNA

Manufacturing analytics in electronics industry – Pivot to quality in the “New Normal”

February 24, 2021 by www.vir.com.vn

Derek Ong, Electronic Industrial Software Solutions manager, Keysight Technologies

Squeezing every last drop of productivity from invested manufacturing equipment on the factory floor was the goal, and hence a lot of focus was on downtime and throughput. Predictive maintenance and asset utilisation are important business outcomes from any successful Industry 4.0 implementation.

Then COVID-19 happened. Other than the race to 5nm chips, 5G, and cloud computing, some sectors of the electronics manufacturing industry have seen a drastic drop in volume, leading to a surplus of production assets on the floor. For some, machines have idled. For others, COVID-19 has caused massive supply chain disruptions.

The necessary steps taken by governments around the globe to manage and halt the spread of this epidemic, has restricted movement of factory employees and subsequently lowered productivity and output. The trade situation between the US and China has forced manufacturers to shuffle operations for business continuity. There are everlasting shifts in manufacturing paradigms as a result of COVID-19. The new “norm” needs a rethink on how Industry 4.0 technology enablers will be used to address the new challenges.

Quality over quantity

Before COVID-19, Industry 4.0 adoption mostly revolved around asset utilisation. In the current situation, it may be better to ensure that every single manufactured product is of the highest quality the process allows. Due to shortages of materials and parts, rising logistics costs and restricted factory employees, manufacturers will have to minimise Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMA) even more than before. Better quality may also prove to be a compelling value differentiator to win more business.

Quality has always been one of the most important manufacturing performance metrics but rather than the usual narrative of adopting Industry 4.0 technologies such as big data analytics, AI, and the Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIOT) to maximise asset utilisations, will need to pivot to adding more focus on improving the quality of the product being manufactured. Keeping machines up and running with minimal downtime gives less Return of Investment (ROI) if product recalls are happening or assets are loaded only half the time most days.

Manufacturing analytics is quickly rising to prominence

Qualitative and quantitative data on products – usually from test and measurement equipment on the floor – is an important source of insights for any big data analytics implementation. They allow engineers to maintain process parameters that yield the highest quality and they provide a real-time barometer of gross reproducibility and repeatability of equipment and processes, which is important for the predictable quality standard of the products.

This means that lower Cost-of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) is going to be something Industry 4.0 technology adoption has to address quickly.

Dangers of anomaly detection and things to look out for

Since the launch of Keysight’s PathWave Manufacturing Analytics in 2018, more manufacturers are embracing the new “normal” and using big data advanced analytics on test and measurement that are generated every second on the production floor.

A core fundamental analytics insight from the platform is being able to predict potential quality issues before they happen. The machine learning tool usually used to do this is around anomaly detection. We have seen a lot of examples of factories investing in setting up a generic big data platform and using publicly available open-source anomaly detection algorithms in production.

What is eventually evident is that these algorithms tend to be low in accuracy when dealing with test and measurement data, as opposed to continuous signals from sensors. This is what drove us to develop our own anomaly detection machine learning model at Keysight, which is tuned to provide the highest accuracy on test and measurement data from the floor.

We also identified “Alert Fatigue” in manufacturing industries that use anomaly detection as a predictor. Hundreds of thousands of measurements are taken in real-time in productionand a large number of anomalies are being alerted to operators or engineers every minute of the day. It is an impossible task for the users to decide which anomaly is most important and what are the most urgent actions to take.

Ultimately, this fatigue leads users to ignore the alerts, and the slow but sure demise of the entire advanced analytics project begins. If the right actions to prevent losses cannot be taken, then the ROI cannot be realised. This is important as, in order to make any investments in big data advanced analytics implementation in the factory worthwhile, it has to directly correlate with business outcomes.

Last year, we put together a team of data scientists and test and measurement experts in Keysight to develop an alert scoring machine learning model that works seamlessly with our anomaly detection algorithms to score measurement anomaly alerts in real-time, and we are planning the release of the new Alert Scoring feature in our upcoming PathWave Manufacturing Analytics 2.4.0 release in the spring of 2021. Alerts are labelled and sorted by the machine learning model as either high, medium, or low severity. The interpretation of the machine learning model of severity required supervised learning that Keysight’s test and measurement were able to provide.

With this first-in-industry alert scoring model, we were able to reduce the number of alerts sent to users for disposition by 90 per cent, in real-life testing. Instead of a hundred alerts, the engineer or operator will only receive ten of the most severe or important alerts.

The ability to combine domain knowledge and data science, sets companies such as Keysight, apart from generic big data platform partners, and we look forward to helping manufacturers achieve more tangible business outcomes with our 2021 roadmap.