VietNamNet Bridge – Chinese goods have been boycotted all over the world for their dumping prices and toxic contents, which experts believe, brings the golden opportunity to Vietnamese producers to boost sales.

Consumers turn their backs to Chinese goods

Both the EU and the US have launched a war against Chinese goods. In early August, the EC organized a press conference to launch the campaign to boycott low quality products, especially the toys sourced from China. Especially, the EU has spent a lot of money to make video clips to advertise the campaign.

Foreign newspapers have quoted experts as saying that not only toys, but other products for children are also dangerous to humans. Some Chinese shoes samples in Italia have been found as having the chrome concentration higher by 10 times than the allowed level. Meanwhile, under the EU’s laws, the products with the content of more than 3 mg would be listed as toxic products that may cause cancer.

Vietnamese housewives nowadays also say “no” to the food and fruits sourced from China, after local newspapers reported that a lot of Chinese products contained toxic substances.

At the Thu Duc and Hoc Mon wholesale markets, known as the biggest Chinese farm produce markets in HCM City, the volume of fruits carried to the markets has decreased by 30 percent every night.

Nguyen Thanh Ha, Deputy Director of the Thu Duc Market Development Company, said about 70-80 tons of fruits are carried to the market every night, accounting for 10-15 percent of the total products.

Ha said that the sales of Chinese goods have been going very slowly, while consumers would only accept Chinese farm produce if Vietnamese products run out.

Also according to Ha, a kilo of Da Lat (Vietnam) sourced potatoes is selling at 28,000 dong, while Chinese potatoes at 12,000 dong. However, Vietnamese housewives would still buy the Vietnamese more expensive products.

Therefore, it happened that retailers mixed red mud into Chinese sweet potatoes to create counterfeit Da Lat’s potatoes which can be sold for better prices.

The merchants specializing in trading Chinese clothes and footwear products have also seen the sales drop dramatically. Thanh Hoai, the owner of a fashion shop in HCM City, complained that Chinese products have been left unsold and heaped up at her home.

The golden opportunity for Vietnam?

Analysts believe that the disfavor of Chinese products in Vietnam would be the golden chance for Vietnamese enterprises to regain their market shares.

However, some experts still have doubts about if Vietnamese producers can grab the opportunity.

Dr Vo Mai, Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Gardeners’ Association, said that the fall of Chinese farm produce does not surely mean the rise of Vietnamese products.

Mai said that Vietnam’s farm produce are diversified, while Vietnam can provide high quality seeds. This explains why Thailand and China have been buying plant seeds from Vietnam. However, the quality of Vietnam’s farm produce is not high due to the problems in the production scheme and the backward technologies, thus making Vietnamese products less competitive in the world market.

Experts have also said they do not think garment companies would be able to weed out Chinese products from the Vietnamese market. Chinese clothes would still be the choice of a part of Vietnamese population thanks to their low prices. Meanwhile, the products penetrate into the Vietnamese market through cross-border gate trade, and they do not bear tax.

Source: NLD