The US-China trade war is the biggest risk to the Asian economy, with the prolonged conflict threatening to “undermine investment and growth in developing Asia”, the Asian Development Bank has said.

Rising production costs are harming the competitiveness of Vietnamese seafood products, according to experts. These include the prices of feed, material input, electricity and labour.

Vietnamese products have great opportunities to reach foreign markets thanks to global online distributors such as Amazon and Alibaba.

If Vietnam is not determined to reform, it will be a lower average income country forever, writes Vu Tien Loc, chair of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry (VCCI) for ‘For a Powerful Vietnam’, a forum initiated by VietNamNet.

Overall business activity stalled in March, according to latest IHS Markit/Cips survey

It includes imported goods such as some fuel and oil products in a no-deal scenario

World trade will continue to face strong headwinds in 2019 and 2020 after growing more slowly than expected in 2018 due to rising trade tensions and increased economic uncertainty. WTO economists expect merchandise trade volume growth to fall to 2.6% in 2019 — down from 3.0% in 2018. Trade growth could then rebound to 3.0% in 2020; however, this is dependent on an easing of trade tensions.

Countries joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are potential markets for Vietnamese wood firms, said Nguyen Ton Quyen, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association.

At the heart of President Trump’s negotiations with China is a troubling contradiction: The United States wants to use the trade talks to encourage the country to adopt a more market-oriented economy. But a key element of a prospective deal may end up reinforcing the economic power of the Chinese state.

In the political realm, no one knows how Brexit’s long-running theater of the absurd will end. But for much of the business world, Britain’s departure from the European Union has effectively happened.