VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese enterprises all nurture the ambitious plans to reach out to the world market. But they just plan to do this alone and don’t think of uniting with one another to get stronger.

The golden opportunity for food exporter

In late 2012, “banh da cua” (crab rice pancake), a product of Vifon (the Vietnam Food Industries JSC), was awarded the IUFoST (International Union Of Food Science and Technology) Global Food Industry Awards 2012.

Vifon’s product beat the other 100 nominated products from 70 countries which are the members of IUFoST to obtain the award.

Vietnamese food has become more and more well-known in the world market. Prestigious food journals have recently mentioned Vietnamese food products repeatedly. The US Health journal in 2012 released a report saying that Vietnamese food ranks the third among the 10 national food products most beneficial human’s health. The first and second positions belonged to Greece and California.

With the great fame and benefits to the health, Vietnamese food processors now have the great opportunities to boost their products to the world market. The research program on the potentials of the franchising model and the food trade models in South East Asia said Vietnam has never before had such a great opportunity to conquer the world market.

Vifon’s General Director--Bui Phuong Mai, said the enterprise has set up the plan of commercializing at least eight new products a year. The company has also outlined the three most important things it must do – improving technology, polishing the company’s images and expanding the distribution network.

“Understanding the consumption tendency and improving the competitiveness of products are the most two important features of Vifon brand,” Mai said.

Big challenges

In order to conquer the world market, Vietnamese enterprises need to build up their brands. However, it is not an easy work.

Tran Xuan Thuy, Managing Director of Cozzy, a tea brand, said it is really very difficult to develop brands in the domestic market, and it is even more difficult to develop brands in the world market, because the work takes time and big money.

Dr. Nguyen Quoc Thinh from the Trade University agrees that this is really a difficult work, especially when Vietnam is behind other countries in many production and business fields. Since foreign enterprises have cemented their firm positions in the world’s market, Vietnamese would have to overcome big difficulties to squeeze into the market.

In such circumstances, the only solution for Vietnamese enterprises is to join forces to have more strength to penetrate the world market. In other words, they need to unite one with another in a national program on brand development.

In fact, in late 2003, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Trade, which is now the Ministry of Industry and Trade, to join forces with relevant ministries to implement the national branding program.

However, Vietnamese enterprises still have not got benefits from the program. Do Thang Hai, Head of the Trade Promotion Agency, an arm of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, admitted that Vietnamese exports have not been known by international consumers as the products from Vietnam.

However, businesses have been told to make every effort to conquer the world market themselves instead of expecting the support from the State. Thinh said that the key to the success is the close cooperation among the businesses in the same fields led by the business associations. Once Vietnamese businesses can unite one with another, they would succeed.

TBNH