VietNamNet Bridge – Many parents have been opting for expensive imported products for their children as confidence in Vietnamese-made products wanes.  

Foreign products flooding in Vietnam

Even though many families are feeling the hardships of economic difficulties, there has been a trend to splurge on expensive imported products for their children. Even those who run households with financial difficulties are sometimes willing to pay millions of VND for foreign-made products for their children.

Ha, who works in Hanoi's Thanh Xuan District, decided to use her lunch break, traditionally nap time in Vietnam, to order diapers and milk for her 8-month old child. She explained, "My baby has been using foreign products since she was born; everything from food to soap and toys. We avoid buying things for her that were made in Vietnam.

Even though we live on a fixed income, we want to buy the best things for our baby, even if that means cutting expenses for ourselves.

She added it is difficult to tell where products sold in Vietnamese markets originated and food grown here is said to be highly contaminated with pesticides. Ha does not even trust the products sold in supermarkets.

Be careful with foreign goods

A number of online shops have opened up as a result of the growing demand for foreign products. Even googling the phrase “Foreign products for children” brings up many results.

Thanks to this trend, these online shops have been operating well and many expanded to selling products from several countries, such as Russia and Thailand, instead of just focusing on those made in the US.

Thu, the owner of one of these online shops, said that foreign products are of better quality than those domestically-produced ones, but parents should be careful to use them in the proper way.

Mr. Nguyen Thai Hoa, from Ba Dinh District, bought some milk produced in Russia for his child without paying attention to the instructions. Some days later, a friend who returned from Russia read the instructions and found that this kind of milk is used for children aged over one year old, while, his child was just seven months old.

DTriNews/VEF