At the 2018 Vietnam Economic Integration Forum 2018, Vu Minh Khuong from Lee Kwan Yew University, member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Team, said that Vietnam needs to better exploit the market, saying that China, after commitments with the US to respect the rules, will be an ideal market for Vietnam.

Nguyen Van Nam, former director of the Trade Research Institute, said China will remain extremely important to Vietnam because it is the largest and nearest market to the country.

Previously, Chinese technical standards set for imports were very strict, and Beijing tried to restrict imports from Vietnam with taxation and administration measures. 

Vietnam’s state management agencies and businesses did not realize the great importance of the market and did not develop long-term strategies.

Enterprises did not try to export products through official channels, but mostly exported products across border gates because the requirement on these products were not strict. This has been going on for a long time.

But China has changed and now sets high requirements on imports.

Sharing the same view, Duong Van Chin from Loc Troi Group, a well-known high-end rice producer, said China is now a choosy market like the US and Japan, and Chinese consumers also set high requirements on food safety. 

China is Vietnam’s biggest importer, followed by the US, South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Taiwan. To boost exports to China, Vietnam’s enterprises have no other choice than make  products satisfying their requirements.

Nguyen Trung Kien, deputy chair of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), also said China now is not easy as it used to be. It now buys high-quality products and requires food safety.

Vietnam has 150 rice exporters, but only 19 have certificates on food safety and are eligible to export rice to China.

Chin said enterprises and farmers need to be better connected to put out products in large quantities and with equal quality.

Vietnamese enterprises also need to take the initiative in contacting Chinese import companies to learn about Chinese demands.

Loc Troi teamed up with a Chinese partner to set up a joint venture with an office in Guangdong. Since 2014, Loc Troi Grouphas sold 200,000 tons of rice each year, 50 percent of which is for export.

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