China-Vietnam trade hits monthly high in November

As this year marks the 15th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Vietnam, the two countries saw their trade maintain strong growth momentum. Vietnam has been China's biggest trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations since 2016, official data showed on Tuesday.

The trade volume between China and Vietnam reached 1.45 trillion yuan ($202 billion) in the first 11 months this year, up 3.6 percent year-on-year. In November alone, bilateral imports and exports hit a monthly record of 161.92 billion yuan, up 12.5 percent year-on-year, according to data released by China's General Administration of Customs (GAC).

In recent years, China and Vietnam have maintained increasingly close industrial and supply chain cooperation. During the first 11 months of 2023, imports and exports of intermediate products between the two countries stood at 1.01 trillion yuan, accounting for 69.8 percent of the two country's trade volume.

Over the period, trade volume of display screens rose 12.3 percent year-on-year to reach 174.76 billion yuan, that of video and audio equipment up 17.1 percent year-on-year to hit 65.54 billion yuan and that of lithium batteries up 10.8 percent to reach 19.84 billion yuan, according to the GAC.

Meanwhile, there is great potential for the two countries to deepen cooperation in agricultural trade due to structural complementarity. Between January and November, China's imports of Vietnam's agricultural products jumped by 20.3 percent to reach 44.62 billion yuan. Chinese vegetables and fruits are popular in Vietnam, and China's exports of agricultural products to the Southeast Asian country rose by 3.1 percent year-on-year to reach 34.31 billion yuan during the period, data showed.

The rapid recovery of cross-border trade between the two countries also contributed to overall trade growth. In the first 11 months, the border trade between South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Vietnam increased by 34.4 percent year-on-year, while trade between Southwest China's Yunnan Province and Vietnam increased by 65.6 percent, according to the GAC.