Carabao Group officially joined the market by choosing Ngoc Thien Bao Company as the exclusive distributor of Carabao energy drink products throughout the country. 

Carabao’s chair Sathien Setthasi hopes the group would obtain 20 percent of the market share by the end of 2018.

He said in Vietnam that energy drinks now account for less than 17 percent of the beverage market, so investors still have many opportunities.

Thai products, from food & beverage, consumer goods to fashion and electrical appliances, have been flooding the domestic market through trade fairs organized in Vietnam under the sponsorship of the government of Thailand.

To implement its plan to expand the market, Carabao plans to pour $200 million into a production line in Vietnam which has designed capacity of 240 million cans per annum.

In early July, Central Group, the giant retailer from Thailand, put B2S Stationary Center in Thu Duc district in HCMC into operation. B2S is another retail brand that Central Group has brought to Vietnam. It provides more than 6,000 products, 80 percent of which bear foreign brands, mostly Thai. 

The retailer plans to open 30 B2S centers in Vietnam in the next five years.

Not only large conglomerates, Thai small and medium enterprises have also been penetrating the Vietnamese market. Thai products, from food & beverage, consumer goods to fashion and electrical appliances, have been flooding the domestic market through trade fairs organized in Vietnam under the sponsorship of the government of Thailand.

Tran Le Anh Thy, director of Ngoc Thien Bao Company, said her company usually attends Thai goods trade fairs because she receives support from Thai partners. 

According to Thy, Thai businesses understand that Vietnamese consumers are afraid of Chinese products, so they are willing to spend big money to promote the sale of Thai goods.

The Nation in late 2016 reported that the government of Thailand has launched programs to help Thai businesses boost exports and outward investments to target markets, including Vietnam. 

Thailand’s exports to Vietnam are mostly consumer goods. The country has surpassed China to become the leading supplier of household-use electrical appliances for Vietnam. In the first seven months of the year, Vietnam imported $590 million worth of products from Thailand.

Meanwhile, GDC reported that fruit imports from Thailand reached $517 million during the same time, a three-fold increase compared with the same period last year, and imported 21,900 cars, worth $393 million. 

The imports from Thailand in the first seven months of 2017 increased by 22.2 percent over the same period last year to $5.64 billion, leading to an increase of $465 million in trade deficit to nearly $3 billion.

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M. Ha