In its June edition of "Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major U.S. Trading Partners", the U.S. Department of the Treasury praised the results of Viet Nam's monetary and exchange rate policy management.
The assessment of potential currency manipulation by major trading partners is based on three criteria: bilateral trade surplus with the U.S., current account surplus, and unilateral, prolonged intervention in the foreign exchange market.
Viet Nam is currently on the "monitoring list" of the department, along with six economies including China, Japan, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan (China). These countries and territory exceeded the thresholds for the bilateral goods surplus and current account surplus criteria.
Viet Nam's bilateral goods trade surplus with the U.S. reached US$103 billion in 2023, making it the country with the third largest goods surplus with the U.S. Additionally, Viet Nam's foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2023 were US$88.1 billion, accounting for 21 percent of GDP.
Once on the monitoring list, an economy will remain there for at least two consecutive reports to help ensure that any improvement in their performance, such that they no longer meet two of the three criteria for enhanced analysis, is durable, rather than being due to temporary factors.
As a further measure, the U.S. Department of the Treasury will add and retain on the monitoring list any major U.S. trading partner that accounts for a large and disproportionate share of the overall U.S. trade deficit, even if that economy has not met two of the three criteria from the 2015 Act.
The report is released twice a year./.