Can Vietnam survive without Ukraine’s imports?

As has been widely reported, this week the UN brokered a deal with Russia and Ukraine to start shipping wheat from the region again.

That said the bombing of the port by Russians over the weekend may delay shipping.

Apart from the logistical problems of avoiding mines around the Black Sea ports will this initiative last.

The UN and Turkey are trying to broker an agreement to allow Ukrainian exports to resume, which would require Russia to lift the blockade and Ukraine to remove mines from its ports.

Ukrainian officials say they can't trust Russia not to use the agreement to gain a military advantage.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has 30 million tons of grain sitting in silos. That accounts for more than half of the available storage space even before the new harvest begins this summer.

How will this embargo lifting affect us living in Vietnam and SE Asia?

Vietnam main global imports are computers, electrical products, and parts (18 percent of total imports) and machine, instruments, and accessories (16 percent). Others include telephones, mobile phones and parts thereof (8 percent); textile fabrics (5 percent) and iron and steel (4 percent).

Vietnam was the fourth largest buyer of Russian wheat after Egypt, Turkey, and Bangladesh in the past.

They imported 1.2 million tons of Russian wheat back in 2018/19.

Meanwhile some countries were far more reliant on Ukraine for their products prior to the blockade.

Those include some of the world's most populous countries: at least 25% of wheat exports in Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan came from Ukraine.

Ukraine-Vietnam in 2020, Ukraine exported $214million to Vietnam.

The main products that Ukraine exported to Vietnam were Iron ores and concentrate; including roasted iron pyrites ($60M), Wheat and meslin ($53.8M), and Maize (corn) ($33.7M).

So hopefully Vietnam will start to see Wheat from Ukraine arriving at its ports in the next few months.

Every bit helps to keep prices rising.

Join our 3 x a week Vietnam News, Travel and Expat information newsletter and keep up to date. https://aseannow.com/newsletter.php