VietNamNet Bridge – Businesses now try all possible methods to boost sales and clear the stocks. CEOs personally also have to meet customers and persuade them to buy their products.

The latest report by the General Statistics Office (GSO) shows that the IPP, the inventory index of manufacturing enterprises had increased by 20.8 percent by August in comparison with the same period of the last year.

High inventories, the biggest headache for businesses, still have not been settled. This explains why businesses still keep indifferent to bank loans, even though banks offer the attractive lending interest rates of 10 percent. The more capital businesses borrow, the higher losses they incur, because products have been selling very slowly.

In August, HCM City’s dwellers got surprised when seeing a CEO of a well-known drink company introducing the products of the company to consumers. The CEO in person brought the glasses of new products to every consumer and retail shop in HCM City and Binh Duong province.

At the Saigon Paper Company, in order to ease the inventories, it has slowed down the production while gathering strength on “liberalizing” the inventories.

Besides this, the company has set up reasonable policies aiming to encourage workers to boost the sales. The sales plans need to be set up in the harmonization with the production plans.

However, an executive of the company has revealed that all the drastic measures just aim to avoid loss, while the company dare not expect profits in the current context, when the input costs keep increasing, and the demand has been sliding.

In principle, businesses have the right to define the sale prices themselves. However, in order to attract buyers, they have only set up modest price increases which prove to be not enough to offset the input cost increases.

Tran Viet Tien, Director of Gia Long Arts Company, said all the enterprises in the business field have been trying to diversify designs and improve the quality of the products in order to make its products more easily salable.

Tien also said that the State should take actions to help ease difficulties for businesses. The most effective measure to do that, according to Tien, is using the state budget-sourced capital to support trade promotion activities in Vietnam and overseas.

The HCM City authorities have promised to push up the measures that help stimulate the demand. With the measures, businesses would have capital for production, technology renovation and growth model changing, which then would help clear the stocks.

A lot of measures have been suggested to boost sales, including the expansion of the potential markets and loyal export markets, or the close cooperation with other provinces to successfully sell goods at trade fairs and exhibitions.

Doan Thi Quyen from the Business Development Institute under the Vietnam Chamber and Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said at a recent workshop that Vietnamese enterprises should re-organize their apparatuses and expand the distribution networks. For example, products should be brought to sale in rural areas, or delivered directly to small merchants.

Quyen believes that boosting the export via Internet should be developed by businesses nowadays, because this allows to boost exports, while businesses do not have to spend too much money for this.

Dinh The Hien, a well-known economist in Vietnam, has advised enterprises to penetrate rural and remote areas. However, this would be very costly to do that. Therefore, he said the expenses for the job should be shared between the state and businesses.

Compiled by Thu Uyen