Hanoi to accelerate local goods’ presence on foreign shelves

Hanoi will enhance the placement of Vietnamese products on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba so that more overseas Vietnamese would have the opportunity to shop.

Fresh lychee from Vietnam on the shelf of a Japanese supermarket. Photo: The Hanoi Times

It was one of the key contents in the roll-out plan for 2022 of the project “Mobilizing overseas Vietnamese to introduce and consume Vietnamese products and develop distribution channels abroad in 2020-2024” approved by the Hanoi People's Committee.

The plan’s focus is on implementing the city's 2022 investment, trade, and tourism promotion program, focusing on drawing the participation of Vietnamese businesses at home and abroad.

Hanoi will strengthen information and communication activities in various forms about new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) to help the city’s businesses take advantage of incentives and opportunities, overcome technical barriers of countries sharing the same FTAs with Vietnam, as well as boost the export to these markets to enjoy preferential tariffs according to commitments in FTAs.

The city will continue implementing trade promotion programs, expanding the market for agricultural products and handicrafts. Developing logistics infrastructure for e-commerce is a priority task that would contribute to promoting the export of goods through digital channels.

The city will also coordinate with the world’s major wholesale and retail distribution groups to distribute Vietnamese-branded products and goods in the networks of the host country, contributing to increasing the turnover of Vietnamese exports.

According to Hoang Manh Hue, Chairman of the Union of Vietnamese Entrepreneurs Associations in Europe, domestic and overseas Vietnamese enterprises need to work together to build a broad distribution chain from raw materials, product quality to customer care.  

Since the FTA between Vietnam and the European Union took effect in August 2020, 100% of Vietnam’s exports to the EU including Sweden, will enjoy lowered import tariff, according to Nguyen Hoang Thuy, Trade Counselor of Vietnam Trade Office in Sweden and the Nordic market. 

With the launch of the Vietnam Business Association in Sweden in Malmo City last month, Thuy hoped that the Association will work closely with the Vietnamese Trade Office to deploy many activities to bring Vietnamese goods to Sweden and other Nordic countries.