Trade promotion will give priority to products with competitive advantages

Mr. Vu Ba Phu, Director of the Department of Trade Promotion (Ministry of Industry and Trade).

How do you assess the effectiveness of trade promotion activities over time?

Over the past time, trade promotion activities have helped businesses find out or reach international markets effectively. Specifically, thanks to the contribution of trade promotion, Vietnamese enterprises as well as Vietnamese goods have accessed new markets, penetrated the traditional markets and created certain brands in many difficult markets.

Some comments said that the budget for trade promotion activities is still limited, affecting directly to their efficiency. What is your point of view?

The amount of budget supporting trade promotion in Vietnam is quite low compared to other countries in the region, accounting for only 0.003% of export turnover, equal to 1/10 compared to Thailand, 1/36 of the world average. The supporting cost for trade promotion in the world is about 0.11% export turnover. Besides, it is worth noting that the trade promotion activities are spreading to most sectors and commodities.

The increase in spending on trade promotion in the context of tight budget is quite difficult. Can you please tell me, in future how will trade promotion be promoted to achieve the most effectiveness?

In order to ensure the priority of trade promotion, firstly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is urgently discussing and working with other ministries, sectors and associations as well as localities to identify items considered as having competitive advantages on the world market. Secondly, the ministries are also trying to determine whether the items have enough ability and space to increase their export value, and then step by step occupying more value added stages in the global supply chain.

Once identified, trade promotion will devote resources and priority focus to these items. At the same time, the problem is to spend resources in a timely manner, not support for a long time. For example, the textile and garment industry, seafood, steel,... have a strong potential compared to other industries in the country... These sectors do not need the support from trade promotion programs in specific form such as air tickets, renting booths..., because they can fully pay. These sectors are considered as the "mature" sectors of Vietnam, which need support in the international media from the Government. In the future, we will have to change in the direction that, with "mature" industries, we must spend state budget resources to support the international communication activities. Connecting to the support of large media corporations such as BBC, CNN,... to bring the brand of Vietnam products to the world market.

And with potential industries and products - the young industries, which are determined to have competitive advantages, we will spend resources to support them through traditional trade promotion activities, including: trade fairs, trade links to access the market more easily. For small and medium enterprises, the participation in fairs, exhibitions, trade links in foreign countries is really challenging, which needs the support of government agencies, specifically the Department of Trade Promotion to help them connect, even design booths, access to business partners ...

Agricultural products are one of the key export commodities of Vietnam. How have Ministry of Industry & Trade and Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development been coordinated to increase the export value of agricultural products in the future, sir?

Farm products have been a strategic item in Vietnam's export over the years and in the coming time. Therefore, during the past, the Ministry of Industry & Trade and Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development as well as other related ministries and agencies such as Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Finance have worked closely with each other in order to build up a brand name for agricultural products in the country as well as in the world; Open market, access market through trade promotion.

On the aspect of trade promotion, the Department of Trade Promotion and the Agro Processing and Market Development Authority (MARD) have made many agreements, cooperating with each other in supporting, locating and building markets, branding for specific products, such as branding for Vietnam rice, shrimp, progressing to each kind of agricultural product such as pangasius, special rice, special fruit... Each brand is built with the exchange, cooperation, hiring experts, meeting with enterprises and associations to identify demands and agree on mechanisms, policies and methods to support the business in the most effective way.

Thank you Sir!

Mr. Truong Quang Hoai Nam, Vice Chairman of Can Tho People's Committee: The most necessary thing is regional logistics center planning

To improve the competitiveness of the province, exports should go straight, thus, shipping costs will be reduced by at least 10 USD/ton. Can Tho is "stuck" in logistics, although the government has planned a port for the province, but for more than a year it has not been implemented. Can Tho is keen to support logistics infrastructure for foreign trade, but there is no mechanism to do so. What Can Tho really needs is a regional logistics planning center; a logistics center of the Mekong Delta, not only Can Tho, should be built.

In addition, the problem that concerns Can Tho today is building geographical indications. At present, in the European market, only three geographical indications of Vietnam are recognized as Phu Quoc fish sauce, Binh Thuan pepper and cashews. Can Tho is famous for rice, but still struggling to do geographic indications for this product because of its small capacity.

Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP): It is necessary to spend the budget to implement the key trade promotion program

Currently, the business community and the whole seafood industry are striving to achieve export turnover of 10 billion USD in 2018. There are some factors that may impact negatively on seafood export such as catfish inspection program of America; anti-dumping duty on shrimp and pangasius to the US and the “yellow card” of the European Commission... Meanwhile, some internal problems such as lack of raw materials for export processing, antibiotic problem, cost production,... are still in the process of improvement.

In order to promote seafood export in the coming time, one of the solutions is to focus on promoting quota export to the Chinese market, controlling the non-quota export. VASEP recommends the Government to consider and direct the implementation of international quality standards for seafood exports to China by road through the issuance and mandatory inspection of quality certificates of food hygiene and safety before export; At the same time, set up a program of inspecting the production conditions from seafood processing and preliminary processing establishments for the Chinese market in order to ensure the quality of export seafood now.

In addition, in the coming time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MOLISA) and VASEP have set a target of key markets such as the EU, USA, Japan and potential markets such as Korea, Australia and Middle East... to solve problems, obstacles to promote export. Regarding trade promotion, it is necessary to promote the market in the direction of chain linkage, conduct public-private partnerships (PPP), recommend the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade to spend budget to organize a number of key trade promotion programs; through the PPP, develop trade promotion programs combining awareness raising so that many components of the value chain can participate in promoting Vietnamese seafood with high quality and safety in a regular and effective way.

Mr. Nguyen Van Sau, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Vietnam Steel Association (VSA): Enterprises should arrange export market reasonably

At present, Vietnamese steel has been exported to many markets and faced with many trade defense lawsuits. To overcome these difficulties and promote export in the coming time, export enterprises need to study and arrange export markets reasonably, avoid focusing mainly on some markets, causing the sudden increase in export, which makes a reason for the importing countries to initiate an investigation.

In addition, the steel export companies also have to improve the competitiveness of their product as well as raise awareness of international trade to avoid possible risks.

VSA expects to receive more support from state management agencies, especially direct units such as the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Specifically, the commercial counseling systems in the countries can help the steel enterprises with market information and the rules and regulations of the market as well. On that basis, the enterprises can better understand the market as well as legal barriers to avoid commercial litigation.

Duc Quang (record)