The Ministry of Industry and Trade and the ASEAN – Japan Centre (AJC) on Tuesday held an online trade promotion conference with an aim to increase exports of consumer goods to Japan.

This was the first online consumer goods trade promotion conference with Japan, which attracted the participation of 40 producers and distributors of consumer goods from eight provinces and cities including Ha Noi, HCM City, Binh Duong, Binh Thuan, Dong Nai, Lam Dong, Long An and Quang Ngai.

Vu Ba Phu, director of the ministry’s Viet Nam Trade Promotion Agency, said that Japan was one of the biggest economic partners of Viet Nam, being its third largest export market.

The two countries had huge untapped potential to boost trade, Phu said, adding that Japan had high demand for agro-fishery products, processed food and consumer goods in which Viet Nam had a competitive advantage.

Phu said Viet Nam and Japan were now members of three trade agreements, including the Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

This creates favourable conditions to deepen cooperation between the two countries in a number of fields and brings opportunities for the two countries in participating in regional and global value chains.

Masataka Fujita, AJC’s Secretary General, said that he highly appreciated Viet Nam’s economic achievements in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Masataka at the conference introduced Japan’s regulations on importing goods, urging Vietnamese firms to strictly comply with these regulations to export to Japan.

Customs statistics showed that the bilateral trade between Japan and Viet Nam reached US$15.6 billion in January-May, up 2.2 per cent against the same period last year, despite the impacts of COVID-19.

Japanese investors also registered to pour $1.27 billion in investment in Viet Nam in the first five months of this year. — VNS