Global leading retailers to sound out market opportunities in Vietnam

Vietnam International Sourcing 2024 to be held in Ho Chi Minh City from June 6 to 8 í expected to attract attention from domestic manufacturing and exporting businesses, as well as international distribution and import corporations from many countries around the world.

As many as 500 firms operating in different fields in the international supply chain, such as food, garments, footwear, bags, sporting and outdoor goods, household appliances, and processing and manufacturing, will take part in the event, said Ta Hoang Linh, head of the European-American Market Department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The exhibition will welcome the presence of large corporations, including AEON and Uniqlo of Japan, Walmart and Amazon of the United States, Safeway of Canada, Falabella of Chile, Carrefour and Decathlon of France, Central Group of Thailand, Coppel of Mexico, IKEA of Sweden, and LuLu of the United Arab Emirates that will seek sources of supply of quality commodities from the Vietnamese market, revealed Linh.

He said that Vietnam is transforming strongly as it becomes a major global manufacturing hub that is able to supply the world market with many diverse, quality, and highly competitive products.

Furthermore, after the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical-economic instability, many retail and wholesale distribution channels are striving to promote diversification strategies to ensure a stable supply. In line with this, many enterprises have chosen the Vietnamese market as their strategic destination in their global supply chain.

Nguyen Duc Trong, head of the division in charge of developing new suppliers for Walmart in Vietnam, said that Vietnam is viewed as a hub in the supply chain of goods for Walmart in 10,500 stores around the world.

“Vietnam has so far exported US$7 billion worth of electronics, garments, toys and other goods to Walmart supermarkets globally. In addition, Walmart is diversifying all products from consumer goods to food such as frozen mangoes, tea, and coffee because these products are well known in the world market,” he revealed.

However, Trong pointed out that Vietnamese goods distributed to Walmart still have to go through its major trading partners, and the US retailer’s goal is to work directly alongside Vietnamese suppliers. To do this, he said that Walmart is stepping up support for local suppliers by working directly with the firm to help them to learn about US consumer tastes and US market standards.

Not only Walmart, a series of other large distribution corporations operating in Vietnam such as AEON, Uniqlo, Decathlon, and Central Group have launched ambitious and detailed strategies aimed at expanding their distribution chains in the near future.

Paul Le, vice president of Central Retail, said that all supermarket chains of this brand currently have up to 95% Vietnamese products. In his opinion, Vietnam boasts many good quality products such as coconuts, lychees, mangoes, and coffee which are favourites among global consumers.

Meanwhile, Yuichiro Shiotani, director of AEON Topvalu Vietnam and China, shared that the firm selects the best potential suppliers to bring products to its stores in 48 countries around the world, and Vietnam is a prime choice.

“Many Vietnamese businesses are our partners and many contracts have been successfully executed. Since 2017, the export turnover of Vietnamese goods through Aeon has doubled, and we are aiming to export US$1 billion of Vietnamese goods through the Aeon system by 2025,” Yuichiro Shiotani shared.

At Vietnam International Sourcing 2023, large foreign corporations operating in various fields held a more positive view of the Vietnamese market, with a number of contracts being signed immediately after the event. The 2024 edition will be double in size compared to last year and is expected to cater to the diverse taste of foreign corporations whilst helping local businesses to penetrate deeper into the global supply chain.