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Domestic market not a temporary harbour
If Vietnamese enterprises do not have serious business plans, they will not succeed in the domestic market, a place which is no longer the personal stomping ground of Vietnamese enterprises.
Truong Dinh Tuyen, a member of the National Advisory Council for Monetary Policies, stressed that businesses are correct in wanting to develop the domestic market as export markets have been narrowed. However, he said that businesses need to have long-term and strategic plans to conquer the market, they should not expect that they can make big leaps in the market overnight
Domestic market not shelter
An economist noted that many export companies have returned to the domestic market, considering this a temporary shelter to stay while they weather the global economic recession. As a result, they are only making products with inventory materials to launch onto the domestic market.
Tuyen emphasised that a market with the commodity and service retail turnover of VND986tril like Vietnam’s is attractive to many countries. However, he said that domestic businesses should be “fair in their treatment of the domestic market, setting up long-term development strategies to conquer the market, and respecting consumers”.
Sharing the same view, Vu Kim Hanh, Director of the Enterprise Support and Business Research Centre, said that if businesses consider the domestic market a ‘temporary shelter’ only, they will move with hasty steps without appropriate investments and detailed studies about consumers’ tastes and market segments’ demands.
Hanh also said that export companies, while making products for domestic consumption, should also prepare to resume exporting when the export markets become bustling again.
Good strategies needed
The businesses which have been successful in the domestic market recently all have had methodical business strategies.
Vinamilk, for example, had turnover from domestic sales and exports at 40% and 60%, respectively, of total turnover in 2006. Considering the home market the target market, Vinamilk has been implementing a series of new measures. Currently, its ratio of domestic turnover vs. export turnover is 80% to 20%.
Nguyen Lam Vien, Chairman of Vinamit, specialising in processed fruits, said that right in 2005, Vinamit, which then focused on exports only, decided to pay more attention to the domestic market. The company’s turnover ratios are now 50% from domestic sales and 50% from exports.
Doan Dinh Duy Khuong, Marketing Director of Hau Giang Pharmacy, said that in order to make Hau Giang a good brand name in the domestic market, the company has spent three years to try a lot of distribution methods in different regions of the country.
To date, enterprises have had to devise strategies themselves to develop the domestic market, while they have not got support from management agencies. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has recently announced a VND52bil worth programme to help support domestic market development. Experts say that Vietnam is behind in setting up strategies to stimulate the domestic market.
VietNamNet, NLD
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