At the conference (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNA) – Thailand is one of themarkets with most potential for Vietnam within the Association of SoutheastAsian Nations (ASEAN), yet businesses need to adopt appropriate strategies toboost exports to the market, experts said at a conference in Ho Chi Minh Cityon May 7.
Nguyen Tuan, Deputy Director for the Investment& Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City (ITPC), said that as members of ASEAN,Vietnam and Thailand have many favourable conditions to enhance economicpartnership and trade exchanges.
Thai goods are widely present in Vietnam andfavoured by many customers. However, not many made-in-Vietnam goods are able topenetrate into the distribution and retail systems in Thailand, he noted.
Nich Reitmeier, Executive Vice PresidentFoothalls, International Food & Alcohol Buying at Central Group Thailand,said that his firm is one of the largest purchasing, distribution, and retailsystems in Thailand. It is also operating effectively in Vietnam with the Big Csupermarket chain.
In Vietnam, Central Group has about 40,000suppliers, with over 90 percent being Vietnamese goods. Despite this, inThailand, only 50 made-in-Vietnam goods items are sold in Central Group’ssupermarkets, mainly consisting of coffee and dried fruit.
According to Reitmeier, Vietnamese products,especially farm produce, have good quality and taste, but have not yet been developedin Thailand as businesses lack focus on building brands and providingsufficient information of products for Thai consumers.
The design of products has not met the demandand preference of Thai people, he added.
Nguyen Thi Hong, Vice President in charge ofsocial responsibility and sustainable development of Central Group Vietnam,said the company wants to seek Vietnamese firms that can supply many Vietnamesegoods for its base in Thailand to bring the products to the global distributionsystem of Central Group.
This aims to support Vietnamese small- andmedium-sized enterprises to boost exports to Thailand and access to othermarkets, she said.
She reminded that Thailand is a choosy market,but requiring high-quality standards.
It takes 3-6 months for Thai agencies to consider granting import certificationfor normal products, and up to 2 years for special areas such as baby food, shenoted. –VNA
VNA
