Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs concluded the MOU on bilateral cooperation in statistics and exchange of external merchandise trade statistics

From 26th  to 29th of October, 2014, the annual meeting between high level delegations from Vietnam Customs (led by Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuc – General Director of Vietnam Customs) and high level delegations from Laos Customs (led by Mr. Athsaphangthong Siphandone – Director of Laos Customs) took place in Vinh Yen City of Vinh Phuc Province. At that time, leaders of the two Ministries of Finance authorized the Directors of Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs to sign some official documents on bilateral customs cooperation, including memorandum between Vietnam Customs-The Ministry of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Laos Customs – The Ministry of Finance of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic on bilateral cooperation in statistics and exchange of external merchandise trade statistics.

According to Vietnam Customs’ statistics, from the beginning to September of 2014, total merchandise trade between Vietnam and Lao went up strongly 37.3%, to USD 964 million in value terms. In which, the total export value was USD 330 million and the total import value was USD 634 million with the positive growth rate of 6.9% and 61.8% respectively. In 2013, Lao was ranked at 33rd place among about 200 exporting markets of Vietnam in the world with the export value of USD 423 million, 0.4% above the performance of 2012 and was ranked at 24th place in exporters to Vietnam with the total imports of USD 668.7 million, 50.4% higher than 2012. Main commodities exported from Vietnam to Laos include petroleum products; iron and steel… and the commodities of Laos imported mainly into Vietnam include wood and wooden products; rubber…
 
Up to now, Customs Department of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic is the fourth partner with whom Vietnam Customs has signed memorandums on bilateral merchandise trade statistics exchange after the following partners: the State Customs Service of Ukraine, the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the Federal Customs Service of Russia. Bilateral cooperation on statistics and exchange external merchandise trade data will facilitate the customs management and contribute to the development of trade relations between the two nations.
 
Besides exchange of merchandise trade data and statistical methodology as mentioned in the memorandums signed with the Ukraine Customs, Belarus Customs and Russia Customs, there are some new contents of bilateral and ASEAN cooperation on external merchandise trade statistics in the memorandum between Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs, including: mirror analysis on import-export statistical data between the two Customs Administrations  in the frame of bilateral cooperation; application of information technology in statistics; cooperation on  training, capacity building in area of trade statistics. 
Source: Vietnam Customs