Vietnam Center GmbH: Bridging Trade between Vietnam and Germany

 The main difficulties Vietnamese enterprises face as they want to expand markets in Germany in particular and the EU as a whole are high labour costs, marketing costs, differences in language, culture and business routines as well as the complication of laws and documents. The VietnamCenter GmbH was set up by Vietnamese businessmen in Frankfurt and is considered an active solution to help Vietnamese enterprises to boost exports to the EU.

 

Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Trade Do Nhu Dinh said: “Germany has always been a key export market of Vietnamese goods. In 2005, the bilateral trade turnover of the two countries was US$1.75 billion, including US$1.15 billion worth of exports of Vietnam.” However, the export flow of Vietnam is not always smooth and stable. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Quang, Deputy Director of Vietnam Center GmbH, said: Many Vietnamese enterprises failed to supply goods to the Deutsch market in a long run and they normally faced up with problems immediately after their exports arrived in Germany. Some of major reasons are high transaction costs, marketing costs and disqualified commodities. Thus, Vietnam Center GmbH was set up to help resolve these hardships.

 

Vietnam Center GmbH gathers, advertises and distributes Vietnam’s potential exports in the German and EU market. The largest objective of the centre is to assist Vietnamese enterprises to carry out trade promotion activities, introduce exports, contact and transact with EU partners to boost export. Besides, the Vietnam Center also introduces economic development potentials in Vietnam’s provinces and cities in need of business cooperation and direct investment from Germany and the European Union.

 

Mr Siegle, Director of FrankfurtMain GmbH, which represents 22 cities in FrankfurtRheinMain, said: The location and potential of the Vietnam Center is especially favourable as it takes only 10 minutes to reach the centre from airports and stations by car. If Berlin is the administrative capital, Frankfurt Main is considered the financial and commercial capital of Germany. The Vietnam Center is just the international goods delivery zone covering 25,000 square metres with a 5-storey main office building and a 3-storey supportive building, which also includes trading centres of Chinese, Indians, Germans, Turkish and others. This is the centre of Germany and the EU, an ideal location to distribute commodities in European nations.

The business cooperation modes between the Vietnam Center and enterprises are space leasing at preferential prices, commercial representation and other services. According to Mr. Do Thang Hai, Deputy General Director of the Trade Promotion Department under the Ministry of Trade, Vietnamese enterprises can supply commodity samples and Catalogues to Vietnam Center and authorise the centre to be their transaction representatives, or enterprises can supply goods and the centre will sell them for enterprises because not all Vietnamese enterprises can rent a space there.

 

The huge potential of Vietnam’s key exports to Germany and the EU like furniture, aquatic products, handicraft items, footwear, garments, textiles and tourism is one of bases for the effective operation of the Vietnam Center. In fact, as many as 50 international enterprises, including four Vietnamese, are operating in the centre. The centre only cooperates with enterprises of high competitiveness and success possibilities. According to Mr. Siegle, unstable enterprises will be rejected by the market soon.

 

Mr. Klaus Schwaegerl, Director of Project Fabric Software Company, said, with the support of this centre, many IT enterprises have gained quick successes. “Vietnam has a high-level workforce, especially IT experts who can speak German. The IT industry of Vietnam, especially software industry, has huge development potentiality. He said Vietnam should more actively introduce potentialities of its enterprises to targeted markets. “I hope Vietnamese enterprises will seek a right and stable export development direction and Vietnam Center will help Vietnamese enterprises to do this,” Deputy Minister of Trade Do Nhu Dinh commented.