E-commerce to blossom

Nguyen Ngoc Diep, director of Vatgia.com, estimated that the e-commerce transaction values in Vietnam posted a 10 per cent monthly growth rate during the past three years.

“We estimated that the value would account for 4 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the next five years from only 0.4 per cent and equivalent to around $400 million for the time being,” said Diep.

Vatgia.com is running one of the top e-commerce websites showcasing 4.1 million products through 12,000 online pavilions developed by 2,500 enterprises and shops in Vietnam. The website witnessed e-commerce transaction value of $12 million a month on average.

E-commerce transaction values accounted for 1 per cent of China’s GDP, equivalent to $40 billion. The value in the US made its largest in the world with 7 per cent of the US’ GDP or $980 billion.

A Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre report reads that Vietnam had around 30 million internet users by the end of November. However, only four per cent of those conduct transactions online.

“We are seeing a trend that internet surfers prefer to log into e-commerce websites rather than newspaper websites and what we should do from here is we should start educate internet users about online transactions,” said Diep.

Nguyen Hoang Hai and Associates lawyer Nguyen Hoang Hai said around 96 per cent of surveyed e-commerce websites in Vietnam did not contain guidelines for customers to handle possible transaction disputes.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoIT) is scheduled to issue the circular on management operations of websites providing e-commerce transactions for products and services later this year.

Under the circular draft, all e-commerce websites including operating websites must register to the MoIT for providing e-commerce transactions for products and services within 90 days. The MoIT will issue a special and common mark for its authentication for e-commerce websites. The move aims to increase trust of customers of e-commerce websites.

Tran Huu Linh, deputy director of MoIT’s E-commerce and IT Department said its next activities focused on translating e-commerce transaction practices further familiar with local customers.

Vietnam targets to have 70 per cent of large-scale enterprises and 30 per cent of small-scaled enterprises being e-commerce website members by 2015.

“We are cooperating with tax agencies and banks to measure official figures of e-commerce transactions as those e-commerce transactions must reports through tax agencies. We have just conducted a survey on large-scale enterprises for the report,” said Linh.