Vietnam's exports to South Korea
• Export turnover
For many years, South Korea has remained one of Vietnam's most important export markets. In 2022, South Korea maintained its position as Vietnam's second largest export market in Asia and third largest one in the world, with Vietnam's export turnover to this country reaching 26.72 billion USD. According to ITC Trade Map, Vietnam's exports to South Korea had stable growth in the period 2013 - 2022 with export turnover increasing nearly 4 times, from 7.17 billion USD in 2013 to 26.72 billion USD by 2022. The average growth rate of Vietnam's exports to South Korea during this period is 17.07%/year. Compared to Vietnam's average export growth rate to the world in the same period of 12.5%, Vietnam's export growth rate to South Korea is quite positive.
South Korea is a potential export market for Vietnam thanks to preferential tariffs from many Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, including AKFTA, VKFTA and RCEP. However, Vietnam's export turnover to this market is still quite modest, accounting for only 5.7% of Vietnam's total export turnover to the world in 2022. This is partly due to Vietnam's export structure not highly complementary to Korea's import structure. Along with that, the Korean market is a relatively demanding market with quite high standards for imported products, especially agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products, which are the main export products of Vietnam.
For Korea, Vietnam ranks seventh in the list of Korea’s largest goods suppliers in 2022, however, the import turnover from Vietnam only accounts for 3.65% of this country's total import value. Besides Vietnam, South Korea currently imports mainly from China, the United States, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Chinese Taipei, Germany, Qatar, and Indonesia.
Table 1 - Vietnam's exports to South Korea in the period 2013-2022
|
Year |
Vietnam’s export value to South Korea (billion USD) |
Vietnam's export growth rate to South Korea |
Vietnam’s export growth rate to the world |
|
2013 |
7.17 |
25.35% |
15% |
|
2014 |
7.99 |
11.44% |
14% |
|
2015 |
9.80 |
22.65% |
8% |
|
2016 |
12.49 |
27.45% |
9% |
|
2017 |
16.18 |
29.54% |
22% |
|
2018 |
19.63 |
21.32% |
13% |
|
2019 |
21.07 |
7.34% |
9% |
|
2020 |
20.58 |
-2.33% |
6% |
|
2021 |
23.97 |
16.47% |
19% |
|
2022 |
26.72 |
11.47% |
10.5% |
Source: ITC Trade Map, 2023
• Main export products and market shares
Vietnam's main export products to the Korean market in 2022 are machinery, clothing, wood, iron and steel, and seafood, etc.
Among the above products, Vietnam is in the top 5 largest exporting countries to South Korea for 8 out of 10 product groups. While the market share of machinery and equipment imported from Vietnam to South Korea is still relatively small, Vietnam's clothing, footwear, wood, and seafood products account for a relatively large share of South Korea's total imports. Notably, clothing (not knitted) accounts for approximately one-third of this country's imports.
The main competitors of Vietnamese goods in the Korean market are some developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia, Germany, and in the Asia, China, Chinese Taipei, and Indonesia are Vietnam's biggest competitors to export to the Korean market.
Table 2 - Top 10 products exported by Vietnam to South Korea in 2022
|
HS codes |
Goods description |
Value (billion USD) |
Proportion in total import value of Korea (%) |
Top 5 import countries of South Korea |
|
85 |
Electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof; sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers, and parts and accessories of such articles |
10.79 |
8.19% |
China, Taipei (China), Japan, Vietnam, The US |
|
84 |
Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances; parts thereof |
2.78 |
4.06% |
China, Japan, The US, Netherlands, Germany |
|
62 |
Articles of apparel and clothing accessories, not knitted or crocheted |
2.42 |
33.61% |
Vietnam, China, Italy, Myanmar, Indonesia |
|
61 |
Articles of apparel and clothing accessories knitted or crocheted. |
1.32 |
26.14% |
China, Vietnam, Italy, Bangladesh, Indonesia |
|
64 |
Footwear, gaiters and the like; parts of such articles |
1.24 |
30.24% |
China, Vietnam, Italy, Indonesia, Cambodia |
|
44 |
Wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal |
0.94 |
24.35% |
Vietnam, Indonesia, China, New Zealand, Russia |
|
03 |
Fish and crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates |
0.68 |
12.4% |
Russia, China, Vietnam, Norway, The US |
|
72 |
Iron and steel |
0.62 |
3.27% |
Japan, China, Vietnam, Taipei (China), Malaysia |
|
90 |
Optical, photographic, cinematographic, measuring, checking, precision, medical or surgical instruments and apparatus; parts and accessories thereof |
0.52 |
2.29% |
The US, Japan, China, Germany, Taipei (China) |
|
63 |
Other made up textile articles; sets; worn clothing and worn textile articles; rags |
0.42 |
30.66% |
China, Vietnam, Japan, Bangladesh, The US |
Source: ITC Trade Map, 2023
Source: Center for WTO and International Trade
