Ministries, sectors and localities have enhance communications campaigns to encourage people to buy more locally-made products as a way to show their support for the domestic manufacturing industry as per the campaign “Vietnamese people use Vietnamese goods” launched by the Party’s Political Bureau.
However, the organizer said that information campaign is not as good as expectation. Fake commodities, smuggled goods, low-quality items and unsafe food are rampant in the local market.
Many Vietnamese goods are not attractive to consumers. Enterprises are inexperienced in selling and service care resulting in low trade promotion.
The central organizer of the campaign petitioned the Secretariat to take heed to lead the Party organization in implementation of the campaign.
Tran Thanh Man, President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front said that program to transport Vietnamese goods to rural districts, industrial parks, newly established urbans, fairs and exhibition helped consumers across the country to know more Vietnamese brand names to assess and compare them with foreign counterparts.
Locally-made commodities including paper, food, cement, garment and textile are top selection of Vietnamese consumers. However, Mr. Man said that there are some weakness in governmental management; accordingly, local administrations, enterprises and consumers experienced lessons from the campaign.
Furthermore, some local governments have not taken good heed to the campaign.
This year, there will be some challenges because free trade agreements started to take effect; hence, tax of imported commodities will be 0 – 5 percent.
Vietnam and other countries signed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which demonstrates their firm commitment to open markets – a big challenge for the country’s economy. Local market will see a severe competition between Vietnamese firms and foreign peers.
Despite the government’s determination, local administrations and departments have not strictly follow; as a result, spending has not shrunk and administrative paperwork is still complicated; consequently, firms’ competitiveness is not equal to their rivals.
Accordingly, participants said that along with calling for support of Vietnamese consumers, governments need to facilitate to encourage firms to re-structure, utilize new IT , build brand name to imrpve their competitiveness.
Deputy Minister of Industry of Trade Do Thang Hai said only when Vietnamese goods are high quality and cheap, consumers will buy them or else, nobody can encourage them to purchase low-quality goods.
Deputy Chairman cum secretary of the Small and Medium Association of Vietnam To Hoai Nam is optimistic that most of Vietnamese people know local commodities ; hence, it needs to promote the campaign to increase the number of local consumers.
