VietNamNet Bridge - As unsafe food has become a big concern of Vietnamese consumers, many foreign enterprises consider this an investment opportunity. Recently, 13 Canadian pork exporting enterprises have come to Vietnam to learn about trade opportunities.

Vietnam has a population of over 93 million people, with increasing demand for safe food as well as increasing income.

"Canadian pork exports to Vietnam impressively increased by 230% in 2015. This shows the great potential of the market for Canadian pork products and it is testament to the Vietnamese consumer’s trust in the quality and safety of this product," said Canadian Ambassador to Vietnam David Devine.

David Lennarz, Vice President of Registrar Corp (USA), operating in the field of consultancy and support enterprises to comply with the regulations of the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), said a lot American businesses want to invest in the food industry of Vietnam through projects producing safe food.

"Many Americans are likely to move production out of China - where production and labor costs is growing strongly - to southern markets, including Vietnam - where there is a lot of potential in food production," said Lennarz.

Registrar Corp has been active in Vietnam since 2005. This firm has partnered with about 400 Vietnamese enterprises, which are also cooperating with American businesses to produce high-quality food products in Vietnam to serve the local market and to export to the US.

According to some sources, though it failed to buy 14% stake in Vissan, a big food processing firm of Vietnam, CJ Group (Korea) plans to invest additional $500 million in Vietnam through direct investment, or M&A.

The additional investment will raise the total capital of CJ to $900 million, with the goal of turning Vietnam into CJ's second largest invested country (after China) by 2020. Currently, CJ Vina Agri, an affiliate of CJ in Vietnam, has four animal feed factories and one breeding farm in Vietnam.

In addition, the Techna Group (France), which specializes in manufacturing and supplying various kinds of nutrients for plants and animals, considers Vietnam a strategic market for business expansion in ASEAN. The group has established Techna Nutrition Vietnam in 2012 and planned to build a factory here in 2018. Currently, all of Techna products in Vietnam are imported directly from France.

In its business strategy, Techna said that the use of banned substances in animal production has reduced the competitiveness of the livestock sector of Vietnam. Therefore, this Group is pushing the supply of safe products to help farmers improve the quality of livestock and less dependent on antibiotics.

Nguyen Vu Loc - CEO of the Mien Tay Export Food Processing JSC in Can Tho City - said while Vietnam is flooded with the food of poor quality, many foreign investors have grasped this opportunity to invest in clean food chains in Vietnam.

Vietnam has a population of over 93 million people, with increasing demand for safe food as well as increasing income. "Foreign enterprises believe they will be very successful in Vietnam," he said.

Nguyen Nam