Vietnam-Canada Trade is growing fast in 2026, Here’s why Indian Exporters and Forwarders should be watching

NEW DELHI: Vietnam’s trade relationship with Canada has moved from a footnote in regional trade data to one of the more closely watched corridors in global logistics this year, and the numbers explain why. Two-way merchandise trade between the two countries crossed roughly $8.6 billion, with Vietnam’s exports to Canada climbing more than 18 percent in a recent full year and continuing to grow another 25 percent in the months that followed. For a trade lane that barely registered a decade ago, that kind of sustained double-digit growth puts Vietnam among the more resilient exporters in Canada’s import mix, at a time when several of Canada’s larger trading partners have struggled to hold their ground.

Why Vietnam Is Pulling Ahead on This Lane

Part of the answer sits in the CPTPP, which brought Vietnam and Canada into the same trade agreement back in 2019 and has steadily lowered the friction for Vietnamese exporters entering the Canadian market. But the bigger driver is what’s happening in Vietnam’s export mix more broadly. The country crossed $930 billion in total trade in 2025, up more than 18 percent year on year, with growth concentrated in electronics, machinery, textiles, footwear, and wood products, the same categories that have made Vietnam the preferred alternative for manufacturers looking to diversify away from single-country sourcing. Canada, alongside the US and EU, has become one of the markets Vietnam is actively courting as it works to expand beyond the roughly three dozen export destinations already generating over a billion dollars in annual trade.

There’s a tariff angle too, and it cuts in an unusual direction. Vietnam currently faces a higher effective US tariff rate than Canada does, yet Vietnamese exports to the US have still grown fast enough that some analysts now expect Vietnam to overtake Canada as a source of American imports within the next several years. That competitive pressure on Canada’s own US-bound trade is part of what’s pushing Canadian buyers to look more closely at Vietnamese suppliers directly, rather than relying on established North American supply chains that are themselves under tariff strain.

Why This Matters for Indian Exporters and Logistics Players

None of this is happening in India’s backyard, but it’s happening in India’s competitive set. Vietnam and India are chasing many of the same buyers in textiles, footwear, electronics assembly, and light manufacturing, and Vietnam’s ability to lock in preferential access to a market like Canada through CPTPP is exactly the kind of structural advantage Indian exporters in comparable categories need to track. When a competing sourcing hub grows its access to a G7 market by double digits two years running, that’s demand India isn’t capturing in categories where Indian manufacturers are otherwise well positioned to compete.

The logistics side of this matters just as much as the trade policy side. Indian freight forwarders and NVOCCs increasingly operate well beyond India-origin cargo, arranging third-country moves for clients with sourcing or manufacturing footprints spread across multiple countries. A growing number of Indian textile and apparel groups have already shifted a share of production to Vietnam over the past several years, following the same China-plus-one logic that’s reshaping sourcing decisions across the industry. For those companies, and for the Indian logistics firms managing their supply chains, a Vietnam-to-Canada shipment isn’t a hypothetical lane on a map. It’s an active booking that needs the same rate visibility, transit reliability, and documentation support as any other trade corridor in a diversified network.

The SMB Angle That’s Easy to Miss

Most coverage of trade corridors like this focuses on the volumes moved by large manufacturers and established trading houses, but the growth on the Vietnam-Canada lane is increasingly being carried by smaller shippers too, businesses moving a container or two a month rather than full vessel allocations. That’s a harder segment to serve well. Traditional forwarders often set volume minimums that exclude smaller shippers outright, or bundle pricing in ways that only become transparent after several rounds of quotes.

Digital-first freight platforms have started filling that gap on specific corridors, offering instant comparative quotes and guaranteed space without the commitments larger forwarders expect. Ship4wd, for instance, runs Vietnam to Canada shipping for SMBs as one of its dedicated trade lane offerings, giving smaller importers and exporters the kind of booking transparency that’s traditionally been reserved for shippers with far larger volumes. For Indian trading companies or their overseas manufacturing partners moving smaller consignments on this specific route, that kind of access matters more than it would on a high-volume lane where negotiating power comes from scale alone.

Watching a Lane Still in Motion

Vietnam’s 2026 trade outlook isn’t without friction. Rising protectionism, tightening environmental standards, and growing scrutiny of forced-labour compliance across Southeast Asian supply chains are all pressures Vietnamese exporters will have to manage as they push toward ambitious export growth targets this year. But the direction of travel on the Vietnam-Canada corridor specifically looks settled for now, and that’s worth tracking closely from India, both as a signal of where competing manufacturing hubs are winning market access India hasn’t yet secured, and as a reminder that global logistics increasingly runs through networks Indian forwarders participate in well beyond the country’s own ports.