Since EU (including 27 nations) is the third largest export market of HCMC, most businesses in the city are quite familiar with satisfying the strict quality requirements, food hygiene, manufacturing technologies there.
The introduction of EVFTA is, therefore, expected to offer even more advantageous conditions for them to expand their market.
At the moment, there are around 300,000 enterprises in HCMC, 90 percent of which are small- and medium-scaled ones. Approximately 20,000 companies here are able to export products.
To facilitate businesses in HCMC to access EU markets, especially when EVFTA comes into effect on August 1 of 2020, the municipal authorities have directed media units actively propagandize the lucrative benefits and possible challenges in the upcoming time.
So far this year, HCMC Department of Industry and Trade has organized at least 5 conferences focusing on EVFTA to inform businesses in need.
The local authorities also boost competitiveness of companies in the city via several practical solutions, supporting policies for manufacturers to upgrade their machinery and to closely connect with other provinces in order to create a close supply chain and value chain. This is supposed to boost productivity and export stability into EU markets.
In addition, HCMC is now speeding up logistics projects to form a strong foundation for export service chains, reducing logistics cost and increasing competitive capacity of domestic businesses in international markets.
In the event, when analyzing the export potential into EU markets, Director General of European and American Market Department Ta Hoang Linh reported that from July 1, EU officially re-opens the export market for more than 10 nations, including Vietnam, which is ranked at the 11th position among top countries exporting merchandise to these markets.
Since the beginning of this year, despite difficulties caused by Covid-19 pandemic, the export rate of Vietnam to EU markets has still witnessed an increase, particularly as to agro-forestry-fisheries products, with the export turnover of the first 6 months reaching US$7.1 billion, a rise of 8.4 percent.
Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh affirmed that exports to EU markets is the key to create global reputation for domestic goods. However, to be successful, Vietnamese businesses need to precisely identify both technological demands and preferential policies of each EU market to take advantage of.
More importantly, it is necessary to boost the manufacturing capability of domestic enterprises, he added.
Minister Anh also expressed his hope to cooperate with media units to timely inform concerned people about these highly potential markets. Meanwhile, feedbacks from media organizations can help related state offices as well as the Ministry of Industry & Trade to make suitable adjustments to tackle any problems that domestic businesses might encounter.
