It is necessary to develop policies to encourage domestic distribution systems to give priority to selling products made by local producers who are making effort to promote green and circular production and business ethics, experts have said.

According to Trần Văn Liêng, Chairman of Việt Nam Quality Association of HCM City, domestic distribution systems should have recognition for suppliers of green products.

He said that cocoa exports to Europe will have to meet the EU’s deforestation regulation starting from December 2024. If cocoa from Vietnamese manufacturers can meet such requirements, he questioned if they be given priority in the domestic distribution system.

There are more and more locally made products which have high levels of creativity and intelligence integrated with ethical and environmental standards, he said, adding that these products should be given a plus point on the domestic distribution system.

Lê Thị Minh Trang, national hygiene and quality director of Central Retail Việt Nam said that strict quality control from the beginning as well as through the entire supply chain is very important.

Quality control will help raise awareness and responsibility of suppliers to standardise their production and entire distribution process to establish sustainable supply chains, Trang said.

Still, it is not easy.

Bùi Trung Kiên, director of Xuân Thái Thịnh Company in Lâm Đồng Province which is exporting to high demanding markets like Japan and the EU, said that enterprises are still facing obstacles when putting their products into the domestic distribution system despites meeting foreign standards.

Unfair competition is one of the major obstacles.

Trần Kim Yến, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for the campaign “Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods" said there are no reasons for Vietnamese goods to lose at home market while they can stand firm abroad.

The most important solution is to promote linkage between production and distribution, she added.

According to Nguyễn Việt Dũng, country chief executive of testing and certification firm Bureau Veritas Việt Nam, leaders of supply chains play an important role in motivating farmers and producers to meet quality standards.

Taking the project of supporting vegetable farming in Mộc Châu to get VietGap certificate to be put on shelves of major retail chains in Hà Nội as an example, Nguyễn Thị Thanh An, representative from Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research said that the distribution play an important role in encouraging the application of quality standards in production for expansion to highly demanding markets.

The distribution system should increase the transparency in requirements for products and suppliers to be eligible to enter their system. — VNS