3:26:33 PM | 7/8/2005
Enterprises and Trade Counsellors Should Join Hands for Export Boost
To help Vietnamese enterprises to promote export and trade activities, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) on March 2, 2005, co-operated with the Ministry of Trade to organise a conference to help enterprises, business associations meet Vietnamese trade counsellors in foreign countries. Around 500 representatives from enterprises, business associations and trade counsellors discussed solutions to boost their co-operation in the coming time, helping boost enterprises' trade activities.
Vietnamese trade counsellors in foreign countries act as a useful information channel for markets and the business environment for local enterprises. Vu Tien Loc, chairman of VCCI stressed that during international integration, enterprises would have to develop long-term strategies, so information about markets provided by trade counsellors was very important.
Nguyen Duy Khien, counsellor in the US, said that the US-based Vietnamese trade counsellor was concentrating of four major issues, including information about the US's import and export policies, market, partners, and co-operation mechanism with trade centres, business associations and enterprises. Talking about the co-operation mechanism, Khien suggested that associations should give comments on analysis sent home by Vietnamese counsellors. He stressed that information about markets should be checked in the domestic market before sharing with partners for trade activities to be more effective. He also said that the posting of information about partners on the Internet has two-side effects. The positive side is that enterprises will receive information about partners very quickly. However, on the other hand, one enterprise may receive offers from many other enterprises. As a result, it is no surprise if the enterprise ignores offers. Enterprises should carefully consider how to send offer emails to potential partners.
Enterprises and business associations, in turn, said they pledged to send their feedback about information sent by counsellors. This will help enterprises to take opportunities to win orders from foreign partners. They won't send feedback to counsellors in cases where they cannot implement the orders of foreign partners. Enterprises and associations agreed on financial support for counsellors to seek information about specific partners and fields, suitable to Vietnamese enterprises.
Also regarding this issue, Tran Ngoc Hai, counsellor in France, proposed that enterprises should not complain to counsellors. Instead, they should co-operate to find suitable solutions for more effective link ups between them. He said that counsellors in France had made efforts to organise the Vietnam Expo in France in six months' time to help members of CCIP to visit. This will be a good opportunity for Vietnamese enterprises to introduce their goods to French partners.
Concluding the conference, Luong Van Tu, deputy minister of trade, noted that information about orders and foreign partners could be sent to the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Trade, VCCI and business associations if counsellors did not know where to send it to. Also, conferences between enterprises and trade counsellors should be regularly organised to review, discuss and orientate trade promotion activities in the most effective manner.
All opportunities should be taken for trade promotion instead of relying on trade counsellors (Tran Ngoc Hai, trade counsellor in France)
Why don’t Vietnamese enterprises take all opportunities for trade promotion instead of relying on trade counsellors to seek partners? I think that the press is the most useful tool to introduce and promote the image of enterprises. However, enterprises waste good opportunities. For example, recently a famous French artist adopted a Vietnamese child. The news hit French television’s coverage for one month. If someone said that the child was not only the symbol of friendship between Vietnam and France but also an ambassador of Vietnamese products, the French public could have seen the image of Vietnamese products via the child on television. Saying that means we should co-operate for trade promotion but not rely on trade counsellors only.
We are really in need of information about the markets of supplying input materials and selling products: (Nguyen Ton Quyen, vice chairman of the Vietnam Wood and Forestry Product Association)
Vietnam’s woodwork has been exported to many countries in the world but mostly under trademarks of intermediary countries. Therefore, Vietnamese producers are rarely known by foreign consumers. We want to boost our co-operation with trade counsellors to introduce Vietnamese woodwork to the world market and to get information about the market’s need. Also, we want to get information about the wood resources that the country can provide a year to help us develop plans to import materials. Our wish is that counsellors recommend markets to us. Information provided by counsellors will help us develop business and production plans to bring Vietnamese products to the world market.
Co-operation should be boosted among associations in different countries (Nguyen Trung Dung, trade counsellor in Japan)
In many cases, we have found orders from Japanese enterprises and many Vietnamese enterprises can implement these orders. How can we distribute the orders? Vietnam now has 64 business associations, which can act as the best bridge to link local enterprises with foreign markets. Vietnam’s associations should promote co-operation with Japan’s associations. There are around 20,000 business associations in Japan. If we can co-operate with these associations, it will be easier for Vietnamese enterprises to seek partners in Japan as we can get information from these associations or may become customers or partners of these associations. This will help free trade counsellors from finding customer after customer, and thinking about how to distribute orders. We are piloting the co-operation model between Vietnam association seafood exporters and producers, and the Vietnam electronic association with partners from Japan.
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