 Cao Quoc Hung, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade at the 2020 Vietnam Online Import-Export Forum (Photo: qdnd.vn) |
During the COVID-19 pandemic, digitizing imports and exports is cutting losses in production and business activities.
Cao Quoc Hung, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said that in the first half of this year Vietnam’s exports earned nearly 123 billion USD, up 0.2% and boding well for the remaining months.
Hung said agencies are implementing measures to support online import and export activities.
“Digital transformation has improved the quality of public services and created favorable conditions for businesses to engage in international trade, save time and money, and boost imports and exports,” Hung said.
“To realize these opportunities, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has been promulgating necessary documents and increasing dialogues with the business community to solve production and trading problems, particularly in imports and exports," he added.
"We will develop more online public services pursuant to better serve the public and businesses. Businesses are encouraged to study the trends and models and prepare necessary resources.”
Digital transformation was previously applied only in large-scale businesses with great financial potential. Now e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce are helping small and medium-sized enterprises expand their market.
Vu Tien Loc, President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, “Small and micro businesses who previously could not penetrate the digital marketplace have now become rivals of large enterprises. Global markets and customers offer both opportunities and challenges for Vietnamese businesses. Direct interaction between producers and consumers is becoming the obvious trend.”
Digital transformation in imports and exports is the process of applying IT to administrative procedures to save time and costs and attract foreign investors. This is a particularly vital direction for importers and exporters as trade agreements begin opening up numerous opportunities.
Nguyen Xuan Hung, Managing Director of Fado Vietnam, which operates a platform called MICZONE to support cross-border trade, said, “Applying e-commerce, businesses can make online export order and find partners but need to meet certain conditions of logistics and payment. Because a majority of businesses involved in online import and export are SMEs, high logistics costs are a challenge for them.”
“Vietnamese businesses can apply e-commerce to their export activities by focusing on market research, brand building, and product packaging to satisfy international customers,” said Hung.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has launched an export support platform called ECVN to help businesses trade online, solve problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and seize opportunities created by FTAs.
The platform is part of a comprehensive plan on national e-commerce development until 2025 and a national digital transformation program to 2025 with a vision to 2030 towards making e-commerce a vanguard of the Vietnamese digital economy.