Post-WTO Accession Period – From 2007 to Present

producing key products such as oil, agricultural products, and seafood" (Documents of the 7th Party Congress, 1991).

Implementing the Party's guidelines and policies, in the last two years of the 1994-1995 plan, we focused on investing in innovation in export processing technology, forming commodity production industries, concentrated agricultural production areas, industrial parks and export processing zones, expanding consumer markets, and actively carrying out the country's industrialization and modernization.

During this period, some export items with high economic value were gradually formed, such as footwear, cashew nuts and peanuts . By the end of 1995, Vietnam had formed 9 export items with high turnover with export value of each item reaching over 100 million USD, namely crude oil, seafood, rice, textiles, coffee, forestry products, rubber, cashew nuts and peanuts (General Statistics Office, 2006).

Thus, continuing to exploit favorable conditions such as natural conditions such as tropical monsoon climate, fertile land, items such as cashew nuts, peanuts, coffee, rubber bring high productivity and have gradually become export items of our country. In addition, the export direction of this period is to promote items with high labor content to take advantage of abundant and cheap labor resources such as textiles, footwear . Therefore, the garment and footwear industry also grows with a fairly large scale and also becomes the main export item of the country. All of these items have a fast growth rate, are competitive and have a position in the world market.

In addition to searching for new export items, during this period, we also focused on developing traditional export items that bring high economic value to the country such as rice and crude oil . Thanks to specific policies and measures, rice and crude oil have become leading export items and have increasingly gained a more stable position in the world market. Vietnam has emerged as the third largest rice exporter in the world. As for crude oil, in 1991 it officially became Vietnam's main export item and has truly become a key economic sector of the country.

In addition to the development of main export items, the structure of key export items also had significant changes during this period. This is the result of improving the structure of export items according to the policy of industrialization and modernization of our Party and State. The export direction during this period is to promote the export of high labor-intensive items to take advantage of abundant and cheap labor resources such as textiles and footwear. Agricultural product exports are also focused .

Table 1 : Structure of Vietnam's exports in the period 1991 - 1995

(Unit:%)

Product group

1991	1992	1993	1994	1995
Agriculture, forestry and seafood	52.3	49.2	50.8	50.0	46.3
Light industry & handicrafts career	14.3	13.7	15.1	16.7	28.4
Heavy industry and minerals	33.4	37.1	34.1	33.3	25.3

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(Source: Statistical Yearbook, 1996)

The trend of industrial and mineral goods increased to 37.1% in 1992 due to the large export value of crude oil during this period. However, by 1995, this proportion had decreased significantly (25.3%) due to the development of textiles, seafood processing and footwear. In the structure of export goods, agricultural, forestry and seafood products tended to decrease gradually, heavy industrial goods and minerals tended to increase gradually, light industry and handicrafts began to change. However, the items we export still have a very high proportion of raw and semi-processed goods (85%).

Thus, the period 1991 - 1995 is considered the opening stage of industrialization, modernization, and transformation of the agricultural economy into an industrial one. In addition to continuing to develop agricultural exports, with geographical and human resource advantages, industrial exports have also had remarkable initial steps.

1.1.3. Period 1996 – 2000

Up to this point, Vietnam has gone through 10 years of implementing the Party's renovation policy and achieved great successes, especially in the economic field. Foreign economic activities have also made significant progress. In that context, the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam took place, continuing to develop the renovation policy to move the country's industrialization and modernization forward. The development of export goods has been paid much more attention by our Party and State, the Party's viewpoint in the resolution of the 7th Congress has added new points compared to the previous period: " create more key export goods, increase the competitiveness of goods in the market, reduce the proportion of raw and semi-processed products, increase the proportion of deeply processed products and the proportion of export goods, and rapidly increase the export of services " ( Documents of the 7th Party Congress, 1996 ).

At this stage, rapidly increasing export turnover is not simply about increasing export volume, but more importantly, improving the quality and value of goods.

Products with high processing and manufacturing technology content will obviously bring higher economic efficiency. Therefore, in this period, some export products have been formed with high economic efficiency, such as electricity - electronics, processed vegetables and fruits.

In the context of increasingly expanding export items, electronic goods and computer assembly components (mainly electronic circuits) although newly appeared, have quickly become the main export items of our country. In 1998, this item achieved an export turnover of 502 million USD, ranking 7th among the 10 main items of Vietnam.

Thus, by the year 2000, our country had many export products that brought high economic efficiency, such as coffee, rubber, cashew nuts, footwear, seafood, electronics, handicrafts and vegetables, of which the three leading products with export volume reaching from 500 million to 1 billion USD/year were coffee, rice , electronics and computer components (General Statistics Office, 2006).

The structure of Vietnam's exports during this period has also changed in a positive direction. Goods with high processing and manufacturing technology content increasingly account for a large proportion , while the proportion of agricultural, forestry and seafood products has decreased.

Table 2 : Structure of Vietnam's exports in the period 1996 - 2000

Unit: %

Product group

1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Agriculture, forestry and seafood	42.3	35.3	35.5	36	29
Light industry & handicrafts	29	36.7	36.6	41.4	33.9
Heavy industry and minerals	28.7	28	27.9	22.6	37.1

(Source: Statistical Yearbook, 2001)

In 1996, the proportion of agricultural, forestry and seafood products (with the proportion of processed and deeply processed products increasingly accounting for the majority) was 42.3%, heavy industrial and mineral products accounted for 28.7%, by 2000 this proportion was 29% for agricultural, forestry and seafood products and 37.1% for heavy industrial and mineral products. This shows that the structure of export goods has shifted positively. In addition, the group of processed and manufactured products that use a lot of labor such as textiles, footwear, and seafood still accounts for a significant proportion, increasing from 29% in 1996 to 33.9% in 2000.

Among the export items that bring high economic efficiency, there are 5 items belonging to the industrial and processing industry, which are crude oil, textiles, footwear, seafood, electronics and electronic components . These groups of items account for a high proportion of 50-60% of the annual export turnover. In 2000 alone, the export turnover of this group of items reached 9.12 billion USD, accounting for 63.75% of the total export turnover of the whole country. (General Statistics Office, 2006).

1.1.4. Period 2001 – 2006

After 15 years of renovation, our country has achieved many important achievements, creating momentum and strength to promote the renovation process in depth. Therefore, the 9th National Party Congress took place, continuing to set out tasks and development directions for the coming period. The Party's viewpoint on building and developing export products in this period is expressed more specifically than in previous periods:

- Promote the export of deeply processed and high-tech goods. Build Vietnam's economy into an export-oriented economy.

- Enhance the competitiveness of light industry, handicraft industry, agricultural, forestry and fishery processing industry for export to increase both export turnover and the proportion of deeply processed export goods to create jobs and increase income for workers. The State needs to support the enhancement of the reputation of Vietnamese goods and enterprises in the world market.

(Documents of the 9th Party Congress, 2001)

Vietnam's exports in the period 2001 - 2006 have achieved very impressive results and are identified as a strength of Vietnam on the path of full and deep integration into the regional and world economy. Export items are diversified, and at the same time develop both in quantity and quality . In 2004, we had more processed industrial products such as bicycles and spare parts, electric wires and cables . By the end of 2006, Vietnam had more than 20 key export items, in which the items with the largest export turnover were still crude oil, textiles, footwear, seafood, wood products, electronics and rice ( General Statistics Office, 2006 ). Rice and coffee became the second largest export items, while pepper ranked first in the world.

In this period, the advantage of cheap labor and resources is no longer a solid support. Our country's export activities are trying to shift to new pillars such as productivity, quality, efficiency, information technology, and e-commerce to improve competitiveness.

Along with the development of export products, the structure of Vietnam's main export products has followed the direction set by the Party, which is to increase the types of processed and manufactured products and reduce the proportion of raw export products, mainly agricultural, forestry, seafood and mineral products . Despite such progress, Vietnam's raw export products still account for a high proportion, requiring further efforts to rapidly increase industrial export products.

Table 3 : Vietnam's export structure in the period 2001 - 2006

Unit (%)

Product group

2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries	24.3	23.9	22.1	20.5	21.1	20.5
Fuel, minerals	21.6	20.5	19.9	22.7	24.7	23.4
CN and Handicrafts	33.9	40.0	40.5	40.4	38.4	39.0
Other goods	20.2	15.6	17.5	16.4	15.6	17.1

(Source: Summary report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2005, 2006)

The quality of export goods is also a matter of great concern during this period and has been significantly improved, contributing to increasing competitiveness in the world market. Some agricultural products of Vietnam have established a position in the world market and the prices of those products have also increased significantly. This result is due to our investment in the processing of agricultural products. This will be a correct and key direction for Vietnam to increase export turnover in the next period.

1.2. Post-WTO accession period – from 2007 to present

Up to this stage, we have gone through 20 years of renovation, achieving extremely great and historic achievements. Our country has had fundamental and comprehensive changes in all fields, especially the economy. Expanding international cooperation, proactively and actively integrating into the international economy, maintaining a peaceful environment has created more favorable conditions for our people to innovate and develop the economy.

- society at a faster pace. Thoroughly grasping the Party and State's ideology set forth in the 10th National Party Congress, our general goal in this period is to " Develop exports with high and sustainable growth rates. Promote investment in developing high-quality production of export products with competitive advantages, capable of capturing a significant market share in the world market. Shift the export structure towards promoting the export of high-value-added products; processed and manufactured products, products with high technology and intellectual content, gradually reducing the proportion of raw exports, promoting the export of services " ( Documents of the 10th Party Congress, 2006 ).

During the period of making efforts to maximize competitive advantages for export development, rapidly promoting industrialization and modernization, striving to achieve the set goals, the event of Vietnam joining the WTO is a major turning point in the process of international economic integration and has a positive impact on Vietnam's economic development, especially import and export activities.

Immediately after joining the WTO, our Party and State continued to propose major and urgent viewpoints, guidelines and policies that need to be thoroughly implemented in the process of implementing WTO commitments, while aiming at the rapid and sustainable development of the economy, which is to focus on researching and perfecting trade policies to boost exports and develop domestic market trade in a modern direction, while shifting the export structure towards promoting exports of high-value-added goods, processed and manufactured products, products with high technology and intellectual content to gradually reduce the proportion of raw exports and promote service exports.

The increasingly deep integration into the regional and world economy, especially joining the WTO, has increased opportunities for our country's products to penetrate foreign markets thanks to tariff reductions and the gradual removal of non-tariff barriers from other countries. Thus, market access conditions for Vietnamese goods are more open, especially for products in which Vietnam has a comparative advantage such as agricultural, forestry, fishery products and labor-intensive processing and manufacturing industries such as textiles, footwear, electronics assembly, information technology, etc. In particular, promoting domestic institutional reform in accordance with WTO commitments will promote the synchronous construction of market economic institutions in Vietnam, creating conditions for the most effective allocation and use of the country's resources, while increasing the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI), thereby creating breakthroughs in the development of exports of processed, manufactured products and services of Vietnam. This is an extremely important factor in encouraging exports as well as selecting and developing export products with high economic efficiency, not only in the short term but also in the long term.

Thanks to positive policies towards integration with the world economy, after more than 3 years of joining the WTO, Vietnam's economy in general and exports in particular have had remarkable improvements. Export turnover has continuously increased, especially export products are increasingly diverse and developed in both quantity and quality.

In 2007, exports increased in most commodities. There were 10 commodities and groups of commodities with turnover of over 1 billion USD, including seafood, rice, coffee, rubber, coal, textiles, footwear, electronics and computer components, wood products and mechanical products , in which there was a clear differentiation: 4 commodities had a strong breakthrough reaching over 3 billion USD: crude oil, textiles, footwear and seafood, 3 commodities of electronics and wood products reached over 2 billion USD. Some new commodity groups, although turnover was not high, had a relatively fast growth rate such as electric wires and cables, handbags, suitcases, hats, umbrellas, plastic products and handicrafts . Some key agricultural products also won big in 2007 due to price advantages in the world market (Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2007).

By 2008, the items that had achieved export turnover of over 1 billion USD in 2007 continued to maintain high levels such as crude oil (10.5 billion USD), textiles (9.1 billion, footwear (4.7 billion USD), seafood (4.56 billion USD), rice (2.9 billion USD), wood products (2.78 billion USD), coffee (2 billion USD), rubber (1.6 billion USD), coal (1.44 billion USD, especially with the addition of electric wires and cables, the export turnover was over 1 billion USD (estimated at 1.04 billion). This is a much higher level than in previous years when our country joined the WTO ( Ministry of Industry and Trade, 2008 ).

In 2009, due to the impact of the global economic crisis, our country's export market was narrowed, turnover decreased, leading to a decrease in the prices of export goods, so many items decreased sharply such as rattan, sedge mats, ceramics, electric cables, handbags. In addition, some key export items also decreased such as crude oil, footwear, rubber, coffee, wood and wood products, seafood... Besides, there were also some items that developed relatively well, exceeding the plan, for example, pepper increased by more than 5%, especially rice increased by 24.4% compared to the plan, coal and crude oil also maintained turnover. Agricultural exports are considered a success.

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