VietNamNet Bridge – While the supplement food market has become more and more attractive in the eyes of foreign manufacturers, it has been missed by domestic firms.

According to Dr. Tran Dang, the Vietnamese supplement food market has been developing very rapidly. In 2000, Vietnam had 13 enterprises in the field, while the figure soared to 1,500 in 2012. While only 63 products were available in the domestic market in 2012, the current figure is 5,514.

Import products account for 40 percent of the market share, while 80 percent of the materials for the domestic supplement fact production have been fed by imports.

Domestic materials getting exhausted

Nguyen Hoang Son, a senior official of the Ministry of Health, said the material demand is very high, about 100,000 tons of herbs for 500 kinds of medicine every year. In the period from 2011 to June 2013 alone, 45,260 tons of herbs were imported through the Chi Ma border gate in Lang Son province.

According to Ngo Quoc Luat from the Medicinal Herbs Institute, the majority of herbs imported from China are low quality products, while many others are counterfeit goods.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has discovered from latest testing that 60 percent of the 600 examined samples could not meet the standards.

As such, Vietnam has spent too much money to import low quality and counterfeit goods. Meanwhile, the domestic sources still have not been used in an effective way.

A report by MOH showed that 3,948 plant species, 408 animal species, 75 kinds of minerals and 50 algae varieties in Vietnam can be used to make medicine and supplement facts.

However, Luat said natural herbs are getting exhausted because of the overexploitation. In the past, Vietnam could exploit tens of thousands of popular herb varieties a year, but the herbs have become very rare.

Importing or making products domestically?

According to Nguyen Hung Long from MOH, Vietnam has 1,207 enterprises operational in the business field, including 725 manufacturers, while the other companies import products for domestic sale.

Of the 4,945 supplement food products registered by enterprises by the end of 2012, only 2,570 products have been granted the quality certificates, while the others still cannot meet the standards.

Vietnamese enterprises have been urged to pour money into the supplement food production, because the market proves to be greatly potential.

Using supplement facts is not a short term fashion, but it has become a growing tendency in Vietnam. Supplement food, rich in vitamins and additional nutrition, are now considered the valuable “vaccines” to prevent from chronic diseases and improve the health.

Vietnamese, with the improved living standards and annual incomes, tend to spend more money on healthcare services and medicine, including herbal medicine.

A report of the General Department of Customs (GDC) showed that Vietnam imported $1.28 billion worth of medicine in the first nine months of the year, not including materials.

Therefore, the supplement food production needs to develop into an industry which is put under the strict management of the government agencies.

Experts believe that if Vietnam applies reasonable policies, making supplement food will be able to become a strong economic branch. Vietnam hopes to export $5 billion worth of supplement facts in 2025-2030.

K. Chi