NEWS TODAY--May 18,08
British market offers untapped potential for Viet Nam exports
(17-05-2008)
An engineer operates the Nam Con Son gas pipe, which was jointly built by the Viet Nam National Oil and Gas Group and foreign companies, including the UK’s BP Group. Viet Nam’s bilateral trade with the UK reached $1.7 billion last year. — VNA/VNS Ha Thai
HA NOI — There’s plenty of room for more Vietnamese products and services in the UK market, commercial expert Laurie Burns told a conference held yesterday in Ha Noi to provide Vietnamese exporters with updated information about the British market.
In order to better tap into this potential market, she said, Vietnamese enterprises should pay more attention to researching tastes of UK consumers and their consumption trends, in order to better design products for UK consumers.
She also urged domestic firms to negotiate suitable payment methods and focus on packing and shipping methods aimed at minimising costs as well as concentrate on improving product quality improvement and diversifying designs to make products more competitive.
Exporters needed to be more active in finding customers by participating trade promotion activities and international trade fairs and exhibitions, she said, citing the Spring Fair Birmingham 2009, the biggest gift and home trade event in the UK, as a good example.
The five-day fair, beginning next February 1, was expected to bring together some of the worlds leading brands with more than 80,000 product buyers in the UK. It would be a valuable venue in which Vietnamese businesses could advertise products and seek new business contracts, Burns said.
Yesterday’s conference in Ha Noi was organised by the Ha Noi Trade Promotion Centre.
The UK is one of Viet Nam’s seven top trade partners with bilateral trade reaching US$1.7 billion in 2007. Viet Nam exports footwear, garments, wood furniture, seafood and coffee, and imports hi-tech products, telecommunications equipment, aviation components, and medicines from the UK. — VNS
