By 2014, Viet Nam had 80 supermarkets and trading centres, 50 specialised small shops and 250 convenience stores of foreign invested companies. There are 10 retail brands from Europe and Asia coming to Viet Nam to develop their business. — VNS Photo

At the seminar held by the Ha Noi Industry and Trade in the capital city on Tuesday, Vo Van Quyen, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)'s Domestic Market Department said growth rate of total retail value in the period of 2001-14 was at 15 to 16 per cent, which was lower than the rate at 25.4 per cent from 2006 to 2010.

Of which, the total retail value of the state economic sector had a downtrend while the retail value of the private economic sector and foreign invested companies showed an uptrend.

By 2014, Viet Nam had 80 supermarkets and trading centres, 50 specialised small shops and 250 convenience stores of foreign invested companies. There are 10 retail brands from Europe and Asia coming to Viet Nam to develop their business.

Quyen said the foreign retailers have had the advantage of experience and financial ability to expand their retail system in the local market and compete with local retailers.

Meanwhile, Phan Chi Dung, head of the Light Industrial Department, said the competitive ability of the domestic enterprises was limited due to lack of capital, small production scale, and low capacity, apart from high production costs, and the non-competitive selling price.

In addition, they have not undertaken any professional market research activity, have limited ability in building product strategy and do not have a large distribution system.

To create good conditions for local retailers to develop their distribution system in the future, Quyen said the State should review and complete regulation-related distribution activities to protect rights and interests of Viet Nam under international commitments.

The State should also receive support for local firms to improve the quality of human resources and trade promotions, apply information technology and approach credit, he said.

Enterprises should co-operate or merge to build retail enterprises with Vietnamese brand names that have the ability to compete with foreign retail brand names, Quyen said.

Local retailers should co-operate with local producers to manufacture products at a cheap selling price, high competitive ability and with a suitable demand from local consumers.

They should also combine with business households in residential regions to develop chains of convenience stores.

Vo Tri Thanh, deputy head of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said local enterprises should seek out business opportunities and expand the market when the nation's economy integrates into the world market. They should accept competition and change from competing in price to not competing in price.

They should also learn to mobilise capital, manage instability and use efficiently the tools to avoid risks.

Trinh Minh Anh, deputy head of the National Committee on International Economic Co-operation's administration office, said local enterprises should study carefully and follow closely the changes in the market to understand the trends of market development in the short, medium and long terms.

Then, they will see reasonable development in their business, he added. — VNS