General Director of the Woolworths Australia Supermarket Group, Mark John, will arrive in Vietnam from March 11-20 to explore the local market, said Nguyen Huu Chi, Vietnamese Commercial Counselor in Sydney.
Chi said, during the stay, the director will negotiate with 33 local businesses over the purchase of Vietnamese-branded products. Accordingly, Woolworths will buy Vietnamese products directly from the producers and distribute them at its chain of supermarkets across Australia.
The Vietnamese products that Woolworths wants to import rice, dried and canned fruits, coffee, packaged tea, canned fish, vegetables, mushrooms, peanuts and seafood.
On the tour, Mark John will come to three agro-seafood processing factories in the southern region, including the Saigon Aquatic Products Trading Joint Stock Company, the Saigon Foodstuffs & Agricultural Products JSC and the Tien Giang Food Company.
According to the counselor, Mark John is scheduled to meet representatives from the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and several large supermarkets and food processors in Hanoi.
Since November 2008, the Vietnamese commercial agency and Woolworths representatives have discussed the contents of the negotiations with Vietnamese enterprises.
Woolworths Australia, set up in 1924, is the biggest supermarket group in Australia with more than 700 supermarkets across the country, serving some 13 million customers per week.
The group’s sales reached AUD42 billion (US$32 billion) last year, obtaining an average annual growth of 10 per cent.
Vietnam has 400 supermarkets and 60 trade centers, and 2,000 convenient stores. It is expected that the number of supermarkets and trade centers will rise 62.5 per cent and 150 per cent in 2010, respectively.
The nation has become the most attractive emerging market for retail investment, lifting from the fourth in 2007, said the 2008 Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), an annual study conducted by AT Kearney of retail investment attractiveness among 30 emerging markets. (VNA)
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