Right from the first days of the new year, many export enterprises in HCM City have exported tonnes of products to new markets, signalling a good start for the city's export performance for the year.

On January 1, two containers (24 tonnes) of coffee products branded Meet More were exported to the European market by Global Trading Connection Co. in Go Vap District. Among these containers were new products such as mint coffee, taro coffee, mango coffee, coconut coffee and green bean coffee. They were ordered by a supermarket system in the Czech Republic and will be distributed in the Czech Republic, France and Germany.

Nguyen Ngoc Luan, CEO of Meet More Coffee, told online newspaper Tienphong that his firm had to run at full capacity in order to fulfil this year's first order as scheduled, and hoped for good luck for his firm in the rest of the year.

Luan said that this was the first time his firm exported coffee products to Europe, after South Korea, Australia and the Middle East. He added that it took his company six months to negotiate and send samples to the European partner to check.

When the city ended social distancing in October 2021, the foreign partner came to its factory to survey and evaluate products before signing the export contract, he said, adding that his company's fruit flavoured coffee products were ready to be exported to the US and Russia by the end of January.

Meanwhile, Phuc Sinh JSC in District 1 delivered 20 containers of pepper and coffee, worth up to US$6 million, to the Netherlands and Germany in the first week of the new year, its general director Phan Minh Thong told Tienphong.

His company also inked deals with other foreign partners in Russia, France and the US, Thong said, adding that this year's exports would be more flourishing and successful than last year.

Another export enterprise, Tan Nhien Co's branch in HCM City, delivered a container of no-soak rice paper to Japan before winning contracts for shipping five containers, or 50 tonnes of the product, to the US.

"However, as Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday is coming soon, we are focusing on fulfilling domestic orders, so we can only supply 10 tonnes of no-soak rice paper to the US in January, the rest will be exported after Tet," he told the online newspaper.

Currently, on average, his firm is providing the local market with 12-14 tonnes of rice paper per day, Hoang said.

A good start in the new year has also inspired the city's export enterprises to conquer new goals for the rest of the year.

Thong said that besides enhancing export markets, his company would focus on taking full opportunities in the domestic market, with the development of a new coffee processing plant while deeply penetrating the spice processing sector.

Meanwhile, Luan said that during the social distancing period, his enterprise had debuted many new products intended to protect people's health.

"Our company was aiming to have exports accounting for 60 per cent of total production output. Putting products on the shelves of all domestic supermarkets besides looking for new export outlets means that we could get growth doubling that in 2021," Luan added.

Many trade experts agreed that Viet Nam's manufacturing and export activities would grow well in 2022 as the country's economy and that of many other countries were recovering and developing.

Pham Xuan Hong, chairman of the HCM City Association of Garment Textile Embroidery and Knitting, said many enterprises in the industry had signed export contracts until the end of the first quarter.

There would be no shortage of textile orders for this year and the industry's yearly target for exports was quite optimistic, at more than US$40 billion, Hong said.

As many as 45.4 per cent of businesses in a recent survey conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO) forecast that their production would increase in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.

Meanwhile, 37.2 per cent of enterprises said they expected stability in their production and 17.4 per cent predicted a reduction.

About 41.4 per cent of the respondents expected an increase and stability in their orders in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. Just 16.8 per cent of the surveyed businesses forecast a drop in orders.

New export orders of 37.2 per cent of surveyed firms were predicted to rise in the first quarter of this year from the last three months of 2021.

New export orders were predicted to drop in 16.7 per cent of enterprises and remain stable in 46.1 per cent. — VNS