Latest news with #tradeSurplus
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Vietnam May exports rise 14% yr/yr, trade surplus at $4.67 bln
HANOI, June 4 (Reuters) - Vietnam's exports in May rose 14% from a year earlier, the government said on Wednesday. The country registered a trade surplus of $4.67 billion for the month, the government said in a statement. Firms in the Southeast Asian nation have been seeking to boost shipments ahead of the Trump administration's "reciprocal" tariff rate that would take place in July. Average consumer prices in the January-May period rose 3.21% from a year earlier, the government said, while industrial production rose 8.8% and retail sales were up 9.7%. Foreign investment inflows in the January-May period rose 7.9% to $8.9 billion, the government said. Foreign investment pledges in the period were up 51.1% to $18.4 billion.
CNA
2 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Vietnam May exports rise 14% yr/yr, trade surplus at $4.67 billion
HANOI :Vietnam's exports in May rose 14 per cent from a year earlier, the government said on Wednesday. The country registered a trade surplus of $4.67 billion for the month, the government said in a statement. Firms in the Southeast Asian nation have been seeking to boost shipments ahead of the Trump administration's "reciprocal" tariff rate that would take place in July. Average consumer prices in the January-May period rose 3.21 per cent from a year earlier, the government said, while industrial production rose 8.8 per cent and retail sales were up 9.7 per cent. Foreign investment inflows in the January-May period rose 7.9 per cent to $8.9 billion, the government said. Foreign investment pledges in the period were up 51.1 per cent to $18.4 billion.
CNA
4 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Indonesia's trade surplus shrinks to lowest in 5 years
JAKARTA :Indonesia booked a trade surplus of around $160 million in April, the lowest since April 2020, amid a surge in imports, data from the statistics bureau showed on Monday. The country had recorded a $4.33 billion surplus in March. Imports jumped 21.84 per cent on a yearly basis to $20.59 billion, with capital goods rising the most. The median forecast in a Reuters poll was for a rise of 7.75 per cent. Exports rose 5.76 per cent in April from a year earlier to $20.74 billion, matching the median forecast of analysts polled by Reuters. The bureau is due to release May inflation and other economic indicators later on Monday.
South China Morning Post
29-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Will Trump-induced fears cause Asian capital to flow back home?
Ever since US President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping 'reciprocal' tariffs on nearly all trading partners on April 2, Asia's economies have been at the top of investors' worry list. Concerns initially focused on Asia's acute vulnerability given that it accounts for seven of the 10 economies with the largest trade surpluses with the United States. Advertisement After Trump announced a 90-day suspension of the levies on April 9, capital flows supplanted trade as the main cause for concern. Investors betting on steep declines in Asian currencies amid the onslaught of protectionism missed the forest for the trees. Some of the most trade-reliant Asian economies have massive current account surpluses, part of which were recycled into overseas assets, especially US bonds. Following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, policymakers across the region decided that accumulating large foreign currency reserves was a crucial prerequisite for financial stability. By 2007, the aggregate current account surplus of Asia's surplus economies – mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore – had reached almost US$700 billion, up from nearly US$200 billion in 2000. In 2005, then US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke noted that Asian economies were saving more than they invested at home and had become a net supplier of capital to the rest of the world. The region's 'savings glut', as Bernanke called it , was helping finance America's current account deficit. The former Fed chair questioned whether the imbalance between the US, which accounted for the bulk of global net capital imports, and Asia, which dominated global net lending, was sustainable. By the end of last year, Asian investors – both official sovereign investors, such as central banks, and private ones, like insurance companies – accounted for 45 per cent of foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds . They also accounted for 55 per cent of foreign holdings of debt issued by a US government department or government-sponsored enterprise and nearly 20 per cent of foreign holdings of US stocks, according to data from Societe Generale. Advertisement Yet Trump's return to the White House has cast doubt over the status of the US as a safe haven. In addition to the ruinous trade policies, Trump's reckless tax cuts and spending legislation – projected to add at least US$3 trillion to America's already ballooning public debt in the next decade – is putting US assets under strain and endangering the country's creditworthiness.
Zawya
29-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Germany's return as world's top creditor may be fleeting: Mike Dolan
LONDON - Germany is reprising its role as the world's biggest creditor for the first time since 1991 - but seismic global policy changes suggest it might not be back in the seat for long. As the United States has soaked up the vast bulk of global savings over the past two decades, the stability of ballooning global trade and investment imbalances has become one of the biggest market issues - especially now, as trade wars unfold. For everyone plotting the map, Japan's Ministry of Finance this week recorded a remarkable milestone. For the first time in 34 years, Germany overtook Japan last year as the biggest net provider of investment capital to the rest of the globe. While exchange rates had something to do with the ranking switch, Germany's unenviable top spot - borne of weak growth and a lack of investment opportunities at home - speaks volumes about the state of world savings, investment and demographics. The three top net creditors - Germany, Japan and China - have one major thing in common. They are all large aging economies where populations have already peaked and are set to decline over the remainder of the century - dampening domestic demand in the process and generating outsized savings pools. But, as Deutsche Bank Chief Economist Robin Winkler points out, the German and Japanese investment positions are quite different in nature. Much to the chagrin of U.S. President Donald Trump's new administration, both countries have run chronic trade surpluses with the United States and the rest of the world for years, relying on exports for growth amid depressed local demand. And they have both banked the lion's share of the resulting savings into overseas investments, mostly in the faster-growing America. In the process, these flows generated more than a decade of U.S. asset booms and dollar appreciation - something Trump's team claim had clobbered U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and eliminated good-paying jobs in the process. Trade tariffs will help to redress the imbalance, according to Trump, and so too would a weaker dollar. FICKLE OR STICKY? But Winkler points out that much of the rise in Japan's surpluses over the years has been in direct investments - company acquisitions, new overseas plants and job creation. Unlike Japan, Germany's trade surpluses have been mostly recycled into portfolio investments such as stocks and bonds - making them far less "sticky" and easily reversed. For Germany, this could be a double-edged sword. "It makes Germany more susceptible to criticism that its trade surpluses vis-à-vis certain countries have not directly generated jobs in these countries," Winkler wrote, adding this could be a problem in trade talks under way. "On the other hand, the low share of direct investment makes Germany's net asset position more liquid and fungible than Japan's," he added. "This should be an advantage at a time of geopolitical fragmentation as it is easier to reallocate or even repatriate foreign assets quickly should it become necessary." Of course, the flipside of Trump's trade and diplomatic wars in Europe this year has been a transformative fiscal boost in Germany aimed at both re-arming and rebuilding the economy - changing its domestic growth trajectory as well as potential choice of investment destination for its savers. Capital needs in Europe are rising fast and incentives for savers and investors to stay at home will come with that. This creates substantial risks for Wall Street - and not just dollar depreciation, which the administration appears to be encouraging. While Japanese investors make up the single biggest group of overseas investors in U.S. government bonds, Europe was the source of $7 trillion of overseas equity investment since 2012. As the past week revealed, the stakes in U.S.-European trade talks - which now only have six weeks to square numerous thorny issues - are very high on both sides of the Atlantic. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters (By Mike Dolan; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
