Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy chairwoman of the HCM City People's Committee, said the conference opened up opportunities to expand investment and trade ties between HCM City and Taiwan. — File Photo

HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — With its young population, vibrant economic growth and high internet penetration rate, Viet Nam can become a "very good" e-commerce market, according to the Taiwan Internet and E-Commerce Association.

Speaking at a Taiwan-Viet Nam Business Conference in HCM City on Tuesday, Hung-Tze Jan, chairman of the association, said Viet Nam has a population of more than 90 million with almost 60 per cent of it being under 30.

"That means people are easy to adopt a new way of retailing, new way of buying things," he said.

"All lay the foundation for people to develop e-commerce."

The conference attracted the participation of more than 20 leading Taiwanese companies operating in the fields of information and technology and e-commerce.

Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy chairwoman of the HCM City People's Committee, said the conference opened up opportunities to expand investment and trade ties between HCM City and Taiwan.

"I hope businesses strengthen investment in sectors like e-commerce, computing services, banking, logistics, and online services."

The city always created favourable conditions for business from the two sides to enhance co-operation and investment in the online and e-commerce sectors, she said.

Hung-Tze said, "We believe that Viet Nam will potentially become a very strong digital economy in Southeast Asia, we strive to explore all facilities to co-operate, including inviting Vietnamese companies to join digital economic activities in Taiwan."

Some Taiwanese e-commerce companies were eager to participate in this market and tie up with local companies, he said.

Payment systems and logistics infrastructure were not yet ready in Viet Nam but e-commerce had still enjoyed very strong growth in the past few years, he said.

Jamie Lin, supervisor at the Taiwan Internet and E-Commerce Association, said the rapid development of the IT industry in Taiwan was thanks to advanced technical infrastructure, relentless creation of manpower and experience in the industry.

The role of investment funds and incubators was also very important, he said.

For example, AppWorks Ventures helped start-ups, especially in the IT industry, get to products-market fit, build scalable businesses and create great human organisations as well as find investors, he said.

Delegates also discussed cloud banking and online services.

"We believe that cloud banking or internet finance will become very important to every economy," Jan said.

The conference was followed by business-to-business meetings to enable a further exchange of information and co-operation opportunities. — VNS