Vietnams cashew exports to UAE increases by 200%

Despite the pandemic, Vietnam's exports of cashew nuts, pepper and some types of agricultural products to the UAE market still saw strong growth.

Cashew is one of Vietnam's key export agricultural products.

According to General Department of Vietnam Customs under the Ministry of Finance, in the first seven months of 2021, cashew exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reached approximately US$23 million, up 200%. This is the item seeing the strongest growth rate among Vietnamese products exported to this market.

It's followed by pepper in term of volume with a growth of 185%. In terms of total export value, pepper exports gained higher value than cashew with US$40 million in the first seven months of the year.

UAE is among the 10 largest export partners of Vietnam globally as well as the largest export partner of Vietnam in the Middle East and Africa. In the balance of trade, Vietnam is always the country with the higher trade surplus with UAE. At the same time, Vietnam's export growth rate to this market are kept at a high level.

In the structure of export items to the UAE, agricultural products accounted for a large proportion and most of them saw strong growth momentum. However, some agricultural products have seen the downtrend.  In which, tea dropped by 34.6%, reaching a total export value of US$1.4 million, rice fell by 15.4%, reaching US$16 million; paper and paper products reached US$2.4 million, down 10%.

In terms of total two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and the UAE, the increase was 37.8% over the same period last year, reaching nearly US$3.1billion. In which, Vietnam's export value to UAE  was approximately US$2.8 billion, up 40,8%.

Regarding the structure of exports, mobile phones and components are the items with the highest export turnovers to the UAE, reaching US$ 1.85 billion, 84.1% above the same period last year. Followed by computers, electronic products and components (reaching US$246.4 million, up 17%); machines, equipment and tools ( reaching US$148.1 million, up 43.1%).

Globally, the UAE is one of the important transit markets with many favorable conditions for boosting the Vietnamese exports to the Middle East, West Asia and African markets.

In addition, the market of the Muslim countries is quite large, estimated to be worth about US$2,000-3,000 billion annually. Geographically, the UAE is located on the shores of the Persian Gulf and a major economy in the Middle East. The country plays a role as a trade and finance center of the region as well the world's third largest transit and re-export center for goods.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and the UAE in 2021 could hit US$5 billion.

Despite large space for the development, there are some certain barriers in the UAE market. Many enterprises used to invest and do business in Dubai shared that Vietnamese companies often faced difficulties in logistic, high costs of warehouses and labors; consequently leading to higher prices and less competitive products.