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(VEN) - The National Trade Promotion Program started in 2003. During the 2006-2010 period, the program was carried out with many innovations, achieving significant results. In the 5 years from 2006 to 2010, the National Trade Promotion Program had 669 projects in operation with a total budget of VND620.2 billion, supporting the participation of 19,000 enterprises, and overseeing the signing of 11,932 contracts and memoranda with total value of US$3.6 billion.
The program has contributed to export growth, in 2008 witnessed the highest increase: 30 percent from the previous year. The program also leaves its impact onto the next year, contributing to the 2011 exports which reached US$96.3 billion, an increase of 33.3 percent over 2010 - the economy's spotlight.
In 2011 at a cost of VND55 billion, covering 50 projects of 22 organizations and 16 local provincial trade promotion, the program supports businesses with 2,529 participations, setting up 4,389 show stands, with signed contracts worth of US$800 million, and it helps organize trade study tours in foreign countries ... Some typical activities can be listed as China - ASEAN Fair, Las Vegas Wooden Furniture Fair in United States, Vietnam - Cambodia Trade Fair, Korean Food Expo; International Fair of Vietnamese home decoration and gifts in Ho Chi Minh City; many other exhibitions in the border area of Vietnam - China, and the market promotion fairs in the key market areas in the North, Central and South of Vietnam.
National Trade Promotion Program helps promote Vietnamese brands, maintain, strengthen the trading partnership, find new partners, find out the tastes and evaluate the demand volume, develop strategies, improve production and create more commodities of high added value, contributing to the success of the campaign "Priority given to Vietnamese goods by Vietnamese", start up the production and circulation of goods at border areas and remote areas to improve the lives of ethnic minorities.
Therefore, when the Ministry of Industry and Trade - Trade Promotion Program Management holds the 2011 program review on Trade Promotion Program, representatives of Associations, and many enterprises appreciate the positive impacts of this program.
The results are just so stories, but the delegates are also expressing their worries. Because, the funding for trade promotion is still limited, with only 1/30 of the average amount spent by the world. From 2011, trade promotion with its focal task to further promote the export, it has to take care of domestic market development, supporting the trades in mountainous, border and island areas.
The institutionalized norms for expenditure and disbursement procedures are among the concerns: such as the maximum support for a company in an exhibition in Vietnam; norms for advertisements, and invitations for visitors attending in Vietnam Expo; the norms for supporting a company to register and get information and build database; the level of support to a company participating in the group "Organizing trade delegations in foreign countries ", all of these norms are almost no longer relevant to reality.
For the year 2012, the industry and trade sector has set a target to increase exports by 13 percent compared to 2011 to about US$108.8 billion. To fulfill this task, it is needed to step up trade promotion through the following measures:
- On a macro level, promotion must be defined as the long-term investments, comparing with the planting of perennial trees that is the export- the outlet of the economy in the context of integration, so trade promotion should be one of the priority items. At the same time, the governing agencies while partnering with companies should actively remove obstacles emerging during processing the institutionalized norms and procedures for better facilitated disbursement.
- In any country, the state budget can not cover all the needs of trade promotion, especially the small and irregular demands. So local associations, individual companies need to be reciprocal, setting up the counterpart fund, "Using Trade Promotion to feed the Trade Promotion"
- With the traditional "hardship emerges smartness," "make to measure, eat to pleasure", the trade promotion program continues to innovate, improve the professionalism and efficiency of trade promotion, so as to create synergized power and contribute to the objectives of export growth, to expand the domestic market and trade development in mountainous areas, border, island and macro-economic stability, to control inflation, and to ensure social security./.
By Nguyen Duy Nghia
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