Product and Market Decomposition of Vietnam’s Creative Goods Export Competitiveness: An RCA-CMS Approach

Abstract

Creative goods trade has become an important component of international commerce as countries seek to strengthen export value through design, cultural content, craftsmanship, branding, and product differentiation. This study analyses Vietnam’s creative goods export competitiveness through product and market decomposition over the period 2010-2023. Using export data from UNCTADstat, the study applies the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index and constant market share (CMS) decomposition to identify Vietnam’s comparative advantages and the sources of export growth. The RCA results show that Vietnam maintained an overall comparative advantage in creative goods exports, but this advantage was concentrated mainly in wickerware, interior products, fashion accessories, yarn, jewellery, and toys. Product-based CMS decomposition indicates that Vietnam’s creative goods exports increased by approximately USD 8.21 billion during the study period. Of this increase, the world growth effect accounted for 50.37%, the product composition effect for 15.89%, and the competitiveness effect for 33.74%. Market-based CMS decomposition further shows that competitiveness improvements played a major role in export growth, particularly in the United States, Japan, China, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Canada, and Hong Kong SAR. However, the negative market composition effect suggests that Vietnam’s exports were not fully oriented toward the fastest-growing destination markets. The findings imply that Vietnam should strengthen product upgrading, design capabilities, branding, and market diversification to sustain creative goods export competitiveness.