It would appear that the diversification of the methods of international transport has made global trade much easier. With the outstanding advantages of cargo volumes, shipping costs and safety of goods, sea transport always accounts for a high proportion of the export and import activities of coastal countries. Today, therefore, seaborne trade is the main method of foreign trade in Vietnam and the world. Towards solutions in the area of seaborne trade development, this study aims to find the essential macroeconomics factors influencing directly seaborne trade by applying autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models with a case study of Vietnam. This paper finds that Vietnam’s GDP and FDI have positive impacts on Vietnam’s seaborne trade turnover in both the short run and long run. The findings here make a significant contribution to the search for practical scientific solutions to enhance Vietnam’s seaborne trade development.

1. Introduction
2. Data description and methodology
    2.1. Data description
    2.2. Qualitative analysis
    2.3. Quantitative analysis - ARDL method
3. Estimates, Results and Analysis
    3.1. Stationary tests
    3.2. Johansen test
    3.3. Optimal lag length selection
    3.4. The final ARDL estimation results
4. Conclusion and Recommendations
References

• Thu Giang VUONG(Ph.D candidate, Faculty of Economics, Vietnam Maritime University, Vietnam)
• Toan Thuyen VUONG(Professor, Hai Phong University, Vietnam)