E-commerce development helps spur economic growth

According to experts, the local internet economy is forecast to grow by 28% this year, representing the highest rate throughout the Southeast Asian region.

Nguyen Thanh Hung, chairman of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM), pointed out the nation’s e-commerce growth rate has increased rapidly over recent years, with the size of the local e-commerce market forecast to rise from US$4 billion in 2015 to US$49 billion by 2025.

Despite these positive signs, the Vietnamese e-commerce market continues to face a number of obstacles in terms of online payment, the fulfillment of orders, foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction, human resource development, and the gap in e-commerce accessibility among localities and the legal system, Hung said.

Sharing this perspective, Nguyen Thi Minh Thao, head of the Department of Business Environment and Competitiveness Research under the CIEM, said the primary hindrance to e-commerce in the country remains the legal system, noting that despite incentive policies, the implementation of these policies in practice is not simple.

With regard to policies for businesses in relation to e-commerce activities, Le Duc Anh director of the Centre for Information and Digital Technology (CID) under the Vietnam E-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency, assessed that there remains inadequacies in incentive policies. These largely exist for enterprises operating in the field of e-commerce, through the Government recently issued a number of decrees to support e-commerce firms.

To help Vietnamese e-commerce to develop sustainably and effectively, experts suggested the Government introduce favourable mechanisms to facilitate business engagement in this field, and fine-tune the legal system to accelerate the development of e-commerce activities.

They used the platform to underscore the importance of limiting the use of cash in transactions and further stimulating e-commerce development.