In this article, we use the technique of stochastic frontier estimation for the structural gravity model to analyse Vietnam’s bilateral trade and evaluate its exploitation of trade efficiency before and after its free trade agreements (FTAs) with China and India entered into force. The results from Vietnam’s bilateral trade data between 2000 and 2015 show that the ASEAN–India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) has had a positive impact on Vietnam’s bilateral trade flows while we found a remarkably negative effect on Vietnam’s exports but not imports after the entry into force of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA). In addition, Vietnam’s participation in the regional trade agreements (RTAs) and FTAs has significantly reduced the costs of trade over time, and these impacts on Vietnam’s imports are much higher than those on Vietnam's exports.

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After 25 years of normalisation, the Vietnam–US relation has developed and yet entered the new expectation to become the strategic partnership. Many motives and obstacles from both sides have had a strong impact on this development. In order to strengthen its presence in Asia and prevent the rise of China, the United States needs the support from the important partnership like Vietnam. Likewise, Vietnam also pays high attention to the United States, which is a potential market for the country’s exports, an investor, an advanced technology supplier and an important security supporter in the territorial disputes against China. Such reasons help both sides to be closer and to construct the scenario of new strategic partnership relations. However, the concretisation of this scenario has encountered many difficulties, mostly because Vietnam was not ready enough. Vietnam has not yet been persuaded to trust the United States on many issues; meanwhile, the differences among Vietnamese political groups about promoting the relations with the United States and especially the concern about China’s response to upgrading Vietnam–US relations were the main obstacles for Vietnam to pursue the strategic partnership relations, especially in security and defence cooperation with the United States.

SMEs account for a large propotion and play an important role in the development of each country in the world, including India. The globalization will bring many advantages for enterprises however SMEs will face fierce competition at the local, national and international level. In order to maintain and promote the important role of SMEs in the context of increased competition, SMEs have to change and adopt new technologies. E-commerce and digital technologies are bringing opportunities to help SMEs improve their competitiveness, narrow the gap with big enterprises thanks to their fairness and flexibility of the digital business environment. According to UNIDO (2017), India is one of the countries successfully applying e-commerce to SMEs. Contributing to this success is the important role of the Indian government. Therefore, this paper focuses on researching the application of e-commerce to SMEs in terms of the role of government in promoting and creating ecosystem for SMEs and e-commerce development.

In the period of 2010-2017, the number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Vietnam tended to be increased, accounting for about 98% of the total number of Vietnamese enterprises by the end of December 2017. Vietnam's SMEs are mainly private enterprises operating in the field of commerce and services as well as industry and construction, mostly concentrated in the Southeast and the Red River Delta. In the research period, micro enterprises had experienced a sharp increase in the loss rate, making the loss rate of the whole enterprise soar. In addition, SMEs were increasingly dependent on loans and especially small businesses had less access to bank loans as well as deferred purchase. However, Fixed-charge coverage ratio of SMEs had been improved and the gap between large enterprises and small enterprises had been narrowed.