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MOIT’s ‘Buy Vietnam’ campaign may miss the mark
A Ministry of Industry and Trade programme that aims to stimulate domestic consumption will start on September 1.
Dr. Ngo Quang Minh of the HCM National Academy of Politics and Public Administration has raised a question: will the trade promotion programme effectively stimulate demand for Vietnamese-made goods and help businesses expand production, or it will it blindly encourage the consumption of goods made by other countries?
Even vegetables are imported
In Vietnam, imported products are on sale everywhere, from industrial products to farm produce.
Dr. Nguyen Minh Chau from the Southern Fruit Research Institute notes that Vietnam, a tropical country and a big fruit and vegetable producer, spent $134 million to import vegetables and fruits in the first months of 2009.
Vietnam’s import bill in August is predicted to be about $6 billion and total over $42 billion in the first eight months of the year.
Chau pointed out that Vietnam had to spend nearly $200 million to import seafood and $539 million to import wood and materials for woodwork production in the first eight months. Vietnam even imported products which can be made domestically and supplied in big quantities, such as dairy products (which had the import turnover of $304 million in the first eight months of 2009) and steel ingots ($554 million).
It appears that several tens of billions of dollars are ‘bleeding away’ because of the high imports. That figure will climb even higher if the Government’s demand stimulus programme tends mainly to encourage the consumption of import products.
Dr. Chau notes with chagrin that imports are so popular that retailers are reluctant to say they are selling domestically-made goods.
For example, he says, sellers tell buyers that they are selling longan from Thailand, while in fact they are selling longan grown in Vietnam. Similarly, Vietnam’s RI-6 or Chin Hoa durian are introduced as Thailand’s products. Meanwhile, these Vietnamese fruits, claims Chau, have higher quality than Thai products.
MOIT is confident
Vo Van Quyen of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) is optimistic about the stimulus program. “The Vietnamese market with 86 million consumers is where domestic businesses have many advantages,” he says. “They well understand Vietnamese consumer preferences. They can select suitable market organization methods and easily establish relationships between producers and distributors.”
“These advantages,” says Quyen, who is Deputy Director of MOIT’s Domestic Market Department, “will help businesses set up stable distribution networks and cement their positions on the market. The domestic market helped businesses ‘live well’ in the first months of the year, when they met big difficulties as the export markets narrowed.”
The garment industry, for example, which once lived on exports, achieved a growth rate of 18 percent thanks to high domestic demand. Vinawind, the electric fan producers, reported revenues of 256 billion dong, up by 22.5 percent over the previous year.
Domestic market regulators hope that they will see a surge in sales of Vietnamese-made goods, when the 51 billion dong trade promotion programme kicks off. Business will be supported by market surveys and workshops. Farm produce and craft villages’ products will be on display at big trade fairs (there will be one in November 2009 in the north and the other in the south in March 2010).
vietnamnet, vneconomy
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