Many synchronous solutions are needed to prevent and handle violations in Vietnamese e-commerce, according to the general director of Việt Nam Directorate of Market Surveillance (DMS) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

E-commerce grows rapidly

Speaking at the opening of the workshop on improving capacity to prevent and handle violations in Vietnamese e-commerce on Wednesday, Trần Hữu Linh, DMS general director, assessed the current situation in the prevention, combat and handling of administrative violations in Vietnamese e-commerce.

E-commerce and online goods trading are dominating daily life more and more, requiring the authorities to promptly grasp and have control methods, said Linh.

Linh added that the project on anti-counterfeiting and consumer protection in e-commerce until 2025 was approved by the Government according to the submission of the MoIT on March 29.

Talking about trade and consumption activities, Linh commented that in recent years the economy had recovered and purchasing power had been good.

However, in the past two years, e-commerce has become one of the big problems, affecting direct business at stores and shops.

Buyers are gradually changing their habits, leading to establishments having to reduce their presence on the street and change their business form.

The general director gave an example at Ninh Hiệp market which has about 2,000 business households, trading activities here and was normally busy. However, the market has been very desolate and deserted from the beginning of this year.

In HCM City, even on busy streets in District 1 and District 3, more and more properties that were previously rented now stand empty.

Statistics given by the DMS show that retail sales on the internet in Việt Nam were VNĐ13 billion (US$541.6 million) in 2020. This number skyrocketed to VNĐ35 billion last year.

Việt Nam is also the country with the highest percentage of shopping population in Southeast Asia. Nearly half of its population shops online, the highest in Southeast Asia with 49.3 million people, equivalent to 41 per cent of the population.

Difficulties in identifying and handling violations

The general director said that fighting counterfeit goods on e-commerce was an extremely important and an urgent issue that needs to be addressed.

This is not only the task of the MoIT but also the common responsibility of society, especially, the market surveillance force.

However, currently, the explosive development of e-commerce has been creating challenges for forces in inspecting and controlling the quality of goods.

Nowadays, the e-commerce environment is growing "hot" and the complexity is increasing, putting pressure on human resources as they have to fight on a new front.

If not done well, an unhealthy online environment will be a potential place to hoard, store, transport and trade infringing goods, contraband and prohibited goods.

The market surveillance force has determined that combating counterfeit goods on e-commerce would be its key task over the next three to five years.

To effectively prevent and stop violations on e-commerce, we must consider social networks and e-commerce platforms as a battlefield, virtual space as real life to proactively fight and promptly detect and handle violations, emphasised Linh.

In addition, it is necessary to build a cyberspace management system, monitoring system, and warning of dangers and risks for digital transformation throughout and unified from the central to local market surveillance force to quickly handle problems, incidents and violations.

E-commerce and social networks are extremely large, cross-border spaces, so it is necessary to promote the application of information technology and pay attention to investment in facilities, equipment and people to serve the task of fighting against counterfeit goods on e-commerce.

In addition, it is also necessary to promote coordination between relevant agencies in inspecting and controlling activities that take advantage of e-commerce to trade counterfeit goods and goods of unknown origin. —  VNS