Vietnam national brand sees strong rise in value, position: Vietrade Director

Vu Ba Phu, Director of the Trade Promotion Agency (Photo: VNA)

The value and position of the Vietnam national brand have constantly improved in recent years in the global market and received recognition from many prestigious international organisations, according to Vu Ba Phu, Director of the Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Phu, who is also head of the Secretariat of the National Brand Programme, highlighted the significant contributions from the business community to the results, stressing that the success in trademark building and development of leading firms has been an important factor in international organisations’ calculation and evaluation of the Vietnam national brand.

Thanks to the improvement of the competitiveness of domestic businesses and products, Vietnam’s export revenue has increased strongly, which has also helped Vietnam national brand become more familiar to consumers around the world, he said.

Phu noted that Vietnam’s import-export revenue rose nearly 800 percent from 84.7 billion USD in 2006 to 668.5 billion USD in 2021, with exports increasing from 39.8 billion USD to 332.2 billion USD in the period.

The World Trade Organisation places Vietnam in the 20th position among 50 countries with largest trade scale in the world.

Along with macro-economic policies, the business community has exerted efforts to make positive changes in the structure of export products.

In 2016, manufacturing products made up 80.3 percent of total export revenue. The proportion rose to 85 percent in 2020 and is expected to reach 90 percent in 2025.

Notably, Viettel has entered the Global 500 list for 2022, while Vinamilk ranks eighth in the Brand Finance’s top 10 most valuable milk brands in the world in 2021.

Phu said that in the 2016-2020 period, Vietnam's national brand value increased 226 percent from 141 billion USD to 319 billion USD, pushing Vietnam to the 33rd position among 100 strongest brands in the world.

Viettel has been the only Vietnamese firm to enter the Global 500 list for 2022 (Source: Viettel)

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021, the national brand of Vietnam maintained the 33rd position in the list with a value of 388 billion USD, up 21.69 percent year on year.

Phu attributed the success to the proper policies and orientations from the Party and State and the directions from the Government over economic, political, diplomatic, cultural and social activities, which has helped enhanced the position and prestige of Vietnam in the world arena.

The active engagement of ministries, sectors and localities in the National Brand Programme, and efforts of the business community have also contributed to turning Vietnam into a strong brand.

According to Phu, in order to successfully establish a brand in choosy markets, apart from products' high quality and differentness, businesses should give more attention to the registration of intellectual property protection for their products abroad, as well as research and development (R&D).

At the same time, it is necessary to foster linkages between domestic suppliers with foreign distributors, and attract more foreign investors in order to bring Vietnamese products to distribution systems in foreign countries, he said. Phu also stressed the need for businesses to improve their awareness on the significance of building, governing and developing trademarks abroad to give suitable resources for the work.

He said that in the future, as part of efforts to develop the national brand, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will select and announce products eligible for the title National Brand in 2022 within the fourth quarter this year.

Together with enhancing public awareness of the necessity of trademark development, the ministry will help improve the capacity for businesses in trademark building, management and development, and further popularise the National Brand Programme and products with national brands. The ministry will also call on the engagement of enterprises in expanding the National Brand Programme, he added./.