Stabilising Distribution Market

Hoang said increasing investment for distribution systems, encouraging all economic sectors to join supply chains, and preventing speculative behaviours and trade frauds are central measures to modernise the distribution system in the future.

 

“Implementing the Resolution 11 of the Government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has directed market stabilisation units and carried out programmes to stabilise food items, medicines, and school things,” he noted.

 

According to the ministry, the domestic commodity market has become gradually stabilised as prices of some essential goods started to slow down. The total retail sales of goods and services in the first five months of the year were estimated to reach VND762.7 trillion, up 22.5 percent year on year. This growth rate showed that retail sector has always been a locomotive of the economy beside exports (growing up more than 30 percent) and industrial production (about 14 percent). Consumer price index in May eased from previous months but was still as high as 2.21 percent from the previous month.

 

Vietnam is continuing with trade promotion programmes this year, particularly “Buy Vietnamese” (encourage Vietnamese people to use Vietnamese goods), rural sales, sale-off months, golden days, etc. As a result, made-in-Vietnam goods are gradually replacing imported ones

 

Mr Vu Vinh Phu, Chairman of the Hanoi Supermarket Association, in large supermarkets like Metro, Big C and Fivimart, the percentage of Vietnamese goods increased from 20-30 percent in early 2009 to 60-70 percent at the present time.

 

In the coming time, distributors and retailers will still confront numerous difficulties in fundraising and price policy lag, which will contribute to higher prices of inputs. To reduce difficulties for enterprises, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will continue coordinating with concerned ministries to support enterprises to borrow capital.

 

On the other hand, the industry and trade sector will strengthen inspection and supervision, strictly punish any act of speculation, hoarding, price hike, trade fraud, and strictly supervise the quality of goods on the market.

 

After more than two years Vietnam fully opens its retail market to foreign companies, world-leading distributors started speeding up the race of enlarging market shares. A series of domestic and foreign-invested retail and distribution projects are adding heat to the market of 87 million consumers.

 

Purchasing power by 87 million people (some 30 percent aged from 18 to 25) in Vietnam is rising up. Many world-acclaimed brands have been present in Vietnam’s major cities. To date, some 15 international retailers have come to Vietnam to find investment opportunities, including Carrefour, Tesco, Wal-Mart, Metro Cash&Carry, and Lotte.

 

According to the ministry, Vietnam now has nearly 9,000 markets but only more than 300 of them are first-class wholesale markets and nearly 1,000 are second-class markets and the rest (some 86 percent) are third-class ones. At the end of 2010, it had a total of 524 supermarkets and shopping centres, mostly concentrated in the country’s two largest cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

 

The US-based RNCOS, a leading market research, anticipated that retail revenues would US$85 billion in 2012. A.T. Kearney of the US rated Vietnam one of three most attractive retail markets in the world always in the top third of the world next to India and China.

 

Ms Dinh Thi My Loan, General Secretary of the Vietnam Retailers Association said the Vietnamese retail market is developing quite strongly and the rising presence of trade centres and supermarkets is an evidence. In the next three years, Vietnam will have a large space for retailing market.