Vietnam’s Moment in (Trade) Time
The wars in Iran and Ukraine, and trade turmoil around the world, especially involving the U.S. and China, have obscured what continues to be one of the essential trade stories of the century: Vietnam’s export growth.
The Asian country of 102 million has staged an epic comeback since the 1970s and 1980s, and has now climbed within the top 20 rankings for world’s top exporters, surpassing economic titans like Australia, India and Brazil.
In 2025, Vietnamese exports increased 21.1% to $466.6 billion. That’s more than twelve times the amount exported in 2019, the first full year for which TDM has data. Vietnam exported $38 billion worth of goods that year.
Vietnam’s Superpower: Versatility
The secret is the complex product mix of Vietnam’s export capacity, as demonstrated by statistics from Trade Data Monitor and a report published in February by Harvard.
Vietnam exported over a billion dollars worth of goods in 28 different export categories. For example, Vietnam exported a billion dollars worth of headgear. It also exported almost $7 billion of seafood, $15.7 billion of furniture, and $24.8 billion of shoes.
However, it’s Vietnam’s integration into the global electronics and high-tech supply chain that has really goosed Vietnam’s numbers. The country exported $161.9 billion worth of electronics and high-tech goods in 2025, making it the seventh biggest exporter in the world, behind only China, Taiwan, South Korea, the U.S., Singapore and Germany.
Kudos from Harvard
That’s impressive for sure, but it’s the variety and complexity of Vietnam’s export machine that led by Harvard in February to put Vietnam on the same level as China in driving growth.
“Vietnam and China are positioned to lead global growth,” the report said. “The findings forecast that economies that built complex productive capabilities will drive the world’s economic expansion for the coming decade, even as riding trade tensions threaten to disrupt their growth trajectories.”
Vietnam, the report said, is expected to “lead all nations in GDP per capita growth, followed closely by China, a remarkable forecast for the world’s second-largest economy.” Vietnam’s GDP per capita is project to be around $5,000 in 2025, and is expected to rise to reach $8,500 by 2030.
The two countries will lead global growth because they have “diversified their production into more complex sectors,” said Ricardo Hausmann, director of Harvard’s Growth Lab.”
Selling Around the World
It’s not just the products that span a wide variety of possibility. It’s also the markets. In 2025, Vietnam exported over a billion dollars of goods to 36 countries around the world, including nations as different from each other as Sweden, Turkey, and Laos.
Shipments to the U.S. rose 31% to $148.9 billion. The second biggest export destination was China, worth less than half of that, up 17.8% to $64.4 billion. After China came South Korea (up 16.8% to $29.5 billion), Japan (up 12.3% to $27.5 billon) and the Netherlands (up 4.7% to $13.7 billion).
Vietnam is Also Buying
Vietnam’s total imports rose 18.7% to $483.5 billion. The country imported over a billion dollars worth of goods from 30 countries. Imports from China bumped up 28.2% to $191.5 billion. Shipments from South Korea increased 9.3% to $63.9 billion. Imports from Taiwan increased 46.3% to $33.8 billion. While the biggest export market, the U.S. is the fourth biggest source of imports. Vietnam imported $31.4 billon from the U.S., up 16.3% from 2024. The fifth biggest source of imports was Japan. Vietnam imported $26.5 billion worth of goods from Japan, up 12.8%.
Vietnams’s top import in 2025 was electronics (up 35.2% to $186.7 billion). Almost half those imports came from China. Vietnam also imported $91.6 billion in parts used to make electronic integrated circuits. Most of those came from three countries: South Korea, China and Taiwan.