Export pathfinders point the way forward

Former Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen was assigned to lead a senior trade research team to work out a comprehensive Vietnam’s export development policies report.

Tuyen proposed the government present adequate policies to bolster growth of eight key items with high export potential. They are plastic items, fine handicrafts and artworks, textiles and garments, electronics, electrical and cryogenic products and accessories, electrical wires and cables, mechanical items and building materials.

“Through delving into Vietnam’s export outcomes from 2006-2010 we saw that these eight product groups gained higher average export growth than the pace of Vietnam’s total export growth in the same period,” Tuyen said.

He assumed the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) needed to sit with diverse product associations and export firms to discuss how to expand investment to grab higher export values.

Central Institute for Economic Research and Management deputy head Vo Tri Thanh said the report succeeded in pointing out how to boost exports of several product groups.

For instance, for wood products and wooden furniture Vietnam should embark on developing local material sources parallel to effectively handling material imports, abating exports through intermediaries and raising the proportion of exported wooden furniture.

For textile and garments, the report reads that Vietnam’s key export markets in the coming period would be the US, the EU, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and markets playing a regional trading centre role such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland.

The textile and garment sector would gear towards hiking the localisation rate and product added values alongside taking a better care of the environment, pumping more capital into designing work to be able to turn out vogue products parallel to diversifying product ranges.

Apart from these eight product groups, the expert team also paid attention to agricultural produce groups to find solutions for the country to push up exports.

“Vietnamese coffee is sold at low prices. Our export partners, after buying Vietnamese coffee, only make some classification then resell the product for much higher values. Studying suitable policies for each agricultural-seafood product group is crucial,” Tuyen said.

Trade experts assumed those policies mainly involve import-export regulatory mechanisms such as investment capital and store conditions.

Experts also voiced the need for better trade promotion, at least raising state investment into trade promotion since current sums were far below that of regional countries.

“The MoIT needs expert recommendations such as the export orientation report to consult with the government about policies to bolster Vietnam’s exports in the forthcoming time,” said MoIT deputy minister Nguyen Thanh Bien.