In a freshly released report, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said that the US remained to be Vietnam’s largest market, accounting for 17.7 percent of its total export turnover.

The five-month export value also saw Vietnam surpass the Philippines and Indonesia on the list of ASEAN exporters to the US.

Vietnam also caught up with Malaysia, which is regarded as now the leading ASEAN country in exports to the US.

Vietnam shipped garment and textiles, woodworks, footwear, seafood, cashew nuts and machinery to the US. Of these, garment and textiles continued to gain the highest value with over US$2.55 billion in the first five months of the year, a year-on-year increase of 17.7 percent, making up 50 percent of the country’s garment and textiles exports turnover. Next came footwear with an export value of US$714 million, making up over 30 percent of total footwear export turnover.

The US was the largest importer of Vietnamese handbags, wallets and suitcases, spending US$180 million on the products in five months of the year, an increase of 44 percent.

In the reviewed period, Vietnam imported US$1.77 billion of goods from the US, an increase of 26 percent over the same period last year.

As a result, Vietnam had a trade surplus of US$4.34 billion to the US , an increase of 21 percent.

The US Commerce Association forecast that Vietnam is capable of leading ASEAN in exports to the US in 2011.