The research looked at Vietnam's trade with India and China before and after they signed free trade agreements. They used a method called stochastic frontier estimation to study Vietnam's trade performance. The results showed that after the deal with India (AIFTA), Vietnam's trade got better. But after the agreement with China (ACFTA), Vietnam's exports went down while imports stayed the same. Joining trade agreements over time helped Vietnam cut costs, with a bigger impact on imports than exports.