Workers of Ngoc Son Ha Nam Company in Ha Nam Province's Binh Luc District producing handicrafts for export. The forum on national branding said Vietnamese enterprises should accelerate measures to develop their trademarks. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Vietnamese enterprises, especially small- and medium-sized companies, should accelerate measures to develop their trademarks — with a view to increasing their competitiveness in the process of regional and international integration, said Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai.

Hai spoke yesterday in Ha Noi at the 9th Forum on Viet Nam National Branding, part of "The National Viet Nam Branding Programme" organised by the Trade Promotion Department under the Ministry of Industry & Trade. He said that branding development is always a ‘hot' issue for many foreign investors, especially since the M&A transactions are flourishing in the domestic market.

Branding development is also an opportunity to evaluate the integration of Vietnamese businesses into the world market.

"SMEs currently account for over 90 per cent of the country's businesses. But most of them are lacking strategies to develop their brands," Hai said.

According to Hai, building brands for enterprises and promoting national trademarks is urgent and important. And it will be even more important when the country opens up the market, in line with free trade agreements it has signed.

Samir Dixit, Asia-Pacific Director of Brand Finance, said at the event that according to a Brand Finance evaluation report, Vietnamese companies' trademark valuation in 2015 totaled US$140 billion, down 19 per cent from the previous year.

Compared with seven ASEAN countries listed in the National Brand Ranking drafted by Brand Finance, Viet Nam ranked sixth — after Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines; and ahead of only Cambodia.

This ranking partially reveals the weakness in Viet Nam's national branding. Plus, Viet Nam still shows shortcomings in product quality, product lifecycle, customer satisfaction, imports, exports, and the social responsibility of enterprises, Dixit said.

Sixty-three companies have been honoured with the National Value Awards: more than double the thirty companies honoured in 2008. Dixit says this is absolutely fantastic. But he doesn't know which 63 companies won, since no information is available about them and there is no website offering this needed information.

"How do you show people that these are the 63 most important companies in the national brand, without promoting them properly?" Dixit said.

Thierry Noyelle, Senior Adviser to the SECO/Vietrade Technical Cooperation Programme, notes that the websites of the 63 enterprises whose brands qualified for "Viet Nam Value" have English-language website versions, but with very poor content.

Noyelle said that only 10 of the 63 companies display the "Viet Nam Value" logo on their websites. The other 53 award-winning companies do not mention Viet Nam Value.

He said "Viet Nam Value" is a collective mark promoting the winning 63 Vietnamese companies and emphasizing three values: Quality-Innovation, Creativity and Leadership. But in practice, the three values seem weakly incorporated into the businesses of VV companies, and VV as a brand is poorly promoted. — VNS