Assessing economic development through trade relations and educational markets integration (the case of Vietnam within ACFTA)

This paper applies the gravity model of trade with panel database to assess the impact of ACFTA on the export and import of ACFTA’s members from 2001 to 2018. The database was taken from World Bank Database, International Trade Center and CEPII Research and Expertise on The World Economy. The estimation results review that ACFTA has positive trade creation and trade diversion effect on the export of all ACFTA’s members including Vietnam, ACFTA does play a pivotal role in the intra – regional export and extra – regional export of Vietnam and other ACFTA’s members. Furthermore, within the scope of the paper, compared to other FTA of ASEAN, the magnitude of trade creation of ACFTA is considerably large. This is consistent with the fact that China is gradually becoming a fundamental trade partner with ASEAN and Vietnam in particular. Contrary to the positive effect of ACFTA on members’ export, the estimation results show that ACFTA is causing negative trade diversion effect on the import of ASEAN members within ACFTA including Vietnam. This is in line with the fact that ASEAN and Vietnam in particular have been running trade deficit with China since 2010 at the expense of import from other trading partners, and the trade deficit has been increasing since ACFTA came into full effect