Promoting Trade with Latin America

12:00 AM @ Monday - 01 January, 1900

(VEN) - Trade between Vietnam and Latin America is expected to reach US$6 billion in 2015 and US$12-15 billion in 2020, an increase of 30-35 percent per year. The Latin America Market Department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade recently sponsored a seminar on potentials and opportunities for trade and investment development between Vietnam and Latin American countries.

Vietnam trades with 33 countries and territories in Latin America. The Latin America Market Department reported that the trade between Vietnam and Latin America came to US$2.4 billion in 2009, with its growth reaching an average of 30 percent per year from 2000-2009. Bilateral trade is expected to reach US$3.5 billion this year. Of this, Vietnam is expected to export goods worth US$1.8 billion, 40.6 percent higher than 2009. Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela are the biggest Latin American importers of Vietnamese goods, which are all expected to buy Vietnamese goods worth a total of more than US$1.6 billion in 2010.
Last year, Vietnam exported to Latin America footwear worth US$325.5 million (accounting for one quarter of Vietnam's total export revenue to this market), rice worth US$205.5 million (15.3 percent), and textiles and garments worth more than US$100 million (9.4 percent). Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Argentina, Chile and Peru are the biggest Latin American importers of Vietnamese textiles and garments. Although they have only entered the Mexican, Brazilian and Columbian markets for a short period, Vietnamese seafood exports (mostly Tra and Ba Sa fish) to each of these markets yielded tens of millions of US dollars. Vietnamese suitcases, bags, plastic products, rubber and rubber products and coffee have carved a niche on the Latin American market. Vietnam's electric and electronic product, mechanical product, equipment, machinery, electrical engine, construction material, ceramic and pottery, cement and steel/iron exports to Latin America have yielded tens of millions of US dollars.
However, the revenue that Vietnam earned from exporting goods to Latin America accounts for only 0.18 percent of Latin America's total import expenditure (about US$695 billion). Vietnamese goods' market share in major Latin American economies like Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Panama remains modest.
Nguyen Duy Khuong, the head of the Latin America Market Department, said that bilateral trade is not high because of many major obstacles. Vietnam and Latin America are located far from each other; Vietnamese businesses lack information about Latin America businesses and vice versa; Vietnamese businesses are not properly interested in trading with Latin American partners and vice versa; Vietnamese trade offices are found in only some Latin American countries and they are newly established facilities so they not yet provided Vietnamese businesses with considerable assistance in accessing markets and finding partners. In Latin America, Vietnamese goods sales promotion remains less effective, while Vietnamese goods have to compete with products of the same kind from China, India and other countries that have lower prices and satisfy local consumer tastes.
Khuong said that there will be many opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to increase sales to Latin America in the coming time, because under their external economic development policies, Latin American countries are directed towards the Orient and consider Vietnam an important gateway to Asia. Latin America has a demand for importing US$2 billion worth of footwear (Mexico, Panama, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba and Peru are the biggest Latin American importers of footwear), and a large amount of rice (Cuba imported rice worth more than US$200 million from Vietnam each year). Making up an 80 percent contribution to Latin America's gross domestic product (GDP), Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Panama are seeking ways to increase trade with Asian countries and territories including Vietnam.
Khuong said that a long-term target is to see Vietnamese goods present throughout all 33 Latin American countries. Apart from maintaining their sales and market share in traditional Latin American markets, Vietnamese businesses need to promote trade with the remaining markets in the region and find ways to sell to Latin America other products like construction materials, ceramics and pottery, electrical engines and high-added-value consumer goods.
To assist businesses, the Latin America Market Department will work with Latin American countries’ embassies in Vietnam to hold seminars promoting Latin American markets and related export opportunities. It will also work with relevant authorities to make it possible for more Vietnamese business delegations to go to Latin America for market research, trade promotion and trade fair and exhibition participation. To provide Latin American partners and consumers with more information about Vietnamese markets and products, the department will edit and publish information about Vietnam and invite Latin American business delegations to Vietnam while sending more staff members who can speak Spanish and Portuguese to Latin America. The Government should increase the Vietnamese trade office presence in major Latin American markets and sign more free trade agreements with potential economies of Latin America to help Vietnamese businesses enlarge their market shares in Latin America.
Latin America is a meeting point of people of different cultures and from different ethnic groups so according to Pham Ba Uong from the Latin America Market Department, Vietnamese businesses should learn about different market segments in Latin America so they can satisfy diverse consumer tastes. Vietnamese goods can entirely satisfy Latin American partners and consumers' demands. Vietnamese businesses should find reliable partners, open L/Cs (letters of credit) for comfortable and less risky forms of payment, and launch websites to introduce their products and services
Nguồn:VEN
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