The Viet Nam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (IDEA) forecasts that the Vietnamese e-commerce market will reach US$10 billion this year. — Photo kiotviet.vn

The logistics sector is forecast to continue growing strongly this year, with expansion in both retail and e-commerce channels.

The Viet Nam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (IDEA) forecasts that the Vietnamese e-commerce market will reach US$10 billion this year.

The agency also estimated that delivery services would record a revenue growth of 30-40 per cent, with the market growing 20 per cent and large companies taking a bigger share.

In a Google-Temasek report on e-commerce in ASEAN countries, the Vietnamese e-commerce market is estimated to increase from $4.6 billion last year to $23 billion by 2025.

The strong growth of e-commerce is beneficial for other supporting industries, such as logistics and e-payment services.

However, the competition in the delivery industry is high as new competitors entered the market in the 2018-19 period, such as Grab Express.

The European Union − Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) is expected to take effect from the second half of this year. FDI capital is expected to continue creating demand for business-to-business (B2B) transport and seaport services. E-commerce growth will increase the business-to-customer (B2C) and customer-to-customer (C2C) transport.

IDEA achievements in 2019 and tasks for 2020

Last week, the Viet Nam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (IDEA) organised a meeting to summarise its work last year and deploy tasks for this year.

Assessing IDEA’s results in the past year, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Cao Quoc Hung emphasised that 2019 was a highlight and an important milestone for the agency as it successfully developed the general plan on national e-commerce development in the 2021-25 period and successfully organised the online shopping festival (Online Friday).

Reporting on the achieved results, IDEA director Dang Hoang Hai said the agency had completed institutions and policies on e-commerce and the digital economy last year.

For the task of supervising and inspecting the implementation of the law on e-commerce and handling violations, the agency received 1,850 responses and handled nearly 1,570 on the e-commerce activity management portal last year.

Notably, the Ministry of Industry and Trade successfully organised 2019 Online Friday to strongly promote the development of e-commerce and the digital economy in Viet Nam, contributing to the development of the economy under the Government's orientation on promoting technology and seizing the opportunity of Industry 4.0.

The event attracted more than 11.9 million interactions across the system, 35,000 downloads of mobile applications, and 1.6 million QR code scans.

Entering 2020, IDEA’s director identified the key tasks of the year, which are to continue gradually improving the legal framework for e-commerce and the digital economy; supervise and inspect the implementation of the e-commerce law; promote online public services; modernise the handling of administrative procedures; continue implementation of the e-commerce development programme and programmes to support enterprises applying e-commerce; and strengthen international co-operation in the field of e-commerce. — VNS