Vietnam trade offices don’t live up to their roles
Vietnam trade offices don’t live up to their roles
The Vietnam trade offices set up in countries around the world have an important role of assisting and promoting Vietnamese products into these markets, but they fail to adequately fulfill their duties.
Besides a few achievements, the overseas trade offices of Vietnam still have many shortcomings, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang said at the Trade Commissioner Meeting in Hanoi on Wednesday.
Many trade offices don’t acknowledge investment challenges and chances in the overseas markets, thus failing to provide adequate guidance to Vietnamese businesses.
Consequently, local businesses fail to enjoy the incentives granted by their target markets due to a lack of information from the trade offices there.
Meanwhile, not enough trade offices have websites that update information for companies back in Vietnam, the minister added.
Besides the annual budget, the overseas trade offices are also granted a special budget used only to organize conferences, forums, or verify information on request from Vietnamese businesses. But some trade offices do not use all of the money allocated for such use.
For instance, Hoang said, a trade office was granted VND10 billion for these specific operations in 2012, but used only VND6.95 billion of it.
The associations of coffee, seafood, and 33 other industry and trade departments countrywide have submitted a feedback document to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, listing a number of drawbacks of the trade offices.
Some trade offices only provided outdated and inadequate information, while others refused to actively cooperate with the businesses, according to the document.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister Vu Duc Dam said the trade offices must do better to fulfill their duty as a bridge to connect local businesses and overseas countries, and assist them in expanding their operations to new markets.
“The trade commissioners should be the policy consultants for the industry and trade ministry and the government,” Dam said.
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