(Yicai) April 11 -- Imports to Vietnam from China soared over 24 percent to USD29.4 billion in the first quarter of the year from a year earlier, thanks to improved ties between the two countries, according to official statistics.

Foreign trade of intermediate goods between Vietnam and China accounted for nearly 70 percent of total trade between these two countries, data from the former’s Ministry of Industry and Trade showed.

Vietnam’s mobile phone manufacturing industry has been growing rapidly in recent years, leading to an increased demand for China-made intermediate goods, such as integrated circuits, mobile phone parts, lithium batteries, and liquid crystal display modules.

Vietnam’s exports of mobile phones and related parts and components jumped an average 34 percent a year between 2011 and 2021, ranking second among the country’s exported goods last year. Vietnam is now the world’s second-largest smartphone exporter after China.

Vietnam has been China’s biggest trade partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations since 2016. Chinese firms investing in Vietnam have spent more on high-tech, information communications, new energy, green development, and e-commerce logistics, Xiong Bo, Chinese ambassador to Vietnam, said last October.

China and Vietnam are highly complementary, said Zhou Shixin, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. Vietnam needs China for upstream production and supply chains to drive its trade volume, so further cooperation on high-end new technologies can boost their economic partnership, he added.

Meanwhile, Vietnam exports a great variety of agricultural products to China. The latter approved the import of Vietnamese durian last August and that of Vietnamese watermelons last December. There are now 14 Vietnamese licensed agricultural products approved for export to China.

Great efforts will be made to officially export Vietnamese green-skinned pomelo, fresh coconuts, avocados, pineapples, Venus apples, lemons, melons, and other fruits to China, said Phan Thi Thang, Vietnam’s vice minister for industry and trade.

Editor: Futura Costaglione