The first Vietnam Festival Programme was held in Japan in 2008 in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations establishment between Vietnam and Japan, and attracted 150,000 visitors over three days. Since then, the annual event, held in mid-September in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo, has been the rendezvous for hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese expatriates living in Japan and Japanese people loving Vietnam to enjoy Vietnamese performances and foods. Ms Nguyen Lan Huong, Chairwoman of Viet Phuc Production and Export Import Joint Stock Company and Head of Hanoi Business Delegation to the Meet Vietnam Festival 2012 in Japan, said Vietnamese gastronomy and handicraft are very attractive to Japanese people. They wait in a long queue to eat spring rolls and Vietnamese traditional pho. After enjoying their favourite cuisines, they gather at handicraft spaces and they are enchanted by the skilful hands of Vietnamese artisans kneading colourful sticky rice dough to make toys called to he.
Participating in the festival, Viet Phuc brought Vietnamese traditional handicraft products such as handbags, sticky rice-made toys and bamboo dragonflies which interested Japanese consumers. When the festival was over, Viet Phuc had some new distributors. With its existing and new partners, the company defined Japan as its long-term strategic market.
The Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Ms Nguyen Lan Huong, President of Viet Phuc Production and Export Import Joint Stock Company. Van Tinh reports.
With its development strategy for the Japanese market, how has Viet Phuc oriented its products to satisfy and conquer this demanding market?
Japanese partners are internationally known for their close alignment of production with environment and their consumer-centred concept. All production processes of Japanese companies always define product safety and environmental cleanliness as crucial elements within business efficiency. Viet Phuc also pursues this standpoint. The company operates in accordance with 5S methodology (sorting, straightening, sweeping, standardising, and sustaining the practice), always works with the philosophy "adding values together", and regards customers’ interests as its own. Viet Phuc relentlessly researches, creates and adopts new solutions to generate maximum benefits for customers. The company studies the market and introduces more environmentally friendly products, and makes use of old newsprints and papers to produce office equipment such as litter bins, pen boxes and document racks. In 2012, its hats successfully conquered Japanese partners.
Japan, with a population of 128 million people, has very high per capita income. Japanese people are very keen on traditional handicrafts. Unlike customers in the United States and other Western countries, Japanese people like dark colours and each product must have five elements of the universe, namely metal, water, fire, wood and earth. Viet Phuc quickly designed products for this market.
On the basis of similarities in viewpoints and culture between Vietnam and Japan, plus our constant efforts for innovation, I believe that our company will conquer Japanese consumers.
How do you feel about Japanese customers and people when you contact with them?
Japan is a potential market as the people there have made and used handicrafts for centuries. Viet Phuc spent more than two years to lay the groundwork in the Japanese market. We went to Japan to explore the aesthetic taste of Japanese people and the standards of Japanese partners. In addition to utility, all the details of a product must be perfect and subtle right from the packaging process. When picking up a product, they usually pay attention to its production process and sophisticated handmade products. They also attend to environmental friendliness, energy saving, price, attitude, responsibility and love of artists.
Working with Japanese partners is the pride of Viet Phuc. When a company exports its products to the Japanese market and receives the trust of Japanese partners, it holds an important certification to enter other markets around the world.
Do you have any recommendations for promoting cooperation between Vietnam and Japan?
Japan is a leading economic, trade and investment partner of Vietnam. The bilateral partnership has sustainably developed over the past nearly 40 years. Together with the Japan -ASEAN comprehensive partnership agreement, Vietnam and Japan signed a bilateral partnership agreement in 2008 to form a favourable legal framework for economic and commercial relations development. At the corporate level, I hope that this relationship will further grow. The Government, trade bodies, industry associations, and chambers of commerce and industry in the two countries continue to create more opportunities for businesses to exchange, look for investment opportunities and promote development cooperation.
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