The Vietnamese retail market is highly attractive to investors given the country’s population of over 97 million, rapid economic growth and an increase in income and consumption, a seminar heard in HCM City on Wednesday.

Speaking at the seminar on Multi-task distribution platform- BB Link – Optimal solution for Vietnamese manufacturing firms, Vo Tan Thanh, vice president of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said retail sales increased by 12.4 per cent last year to US$143 billion.

“Many foreign investors have invested in Viet Nam’s retail sector in the past.

"Retail ranked sixth among sectors attracting the largest foreign direct investment.”

Many large retailers from Thailand, South Korea and Japan have increased their investment in Viet Nam, and many US retailers had shown interest in the market, he said.

Local giants such as Saigon Co.op and Vingroup had also made bold investments in the sector, he added.

Nguyen Ngoc Dung, vice president of the Viet Nam E-Commerce Association, said the e-commerce sector had also grown strongly in recent years and now had many different trading platforms.

But 70 per cent of their transactions are from Ha Noi and HCM City, and his association was striving to increase e-commerce transactions in other cities and provinces to ensure they account for 50 per cent by 2025, he said.

Thanh said despite strong growth in recent years the modern channel only accounted for 25 per cent of retail sales.

The traditional channel with over 9,000 markets and 1.4 million grocery stores accounted for the rest, he said.

Vincent Lu The Hung, chief strategy officer of BB Vietnam Investment and Trading Corporation, said the retail sector had great potential.

But manufacturers, importers and distributors had difficulty distributing their products through the traditional channel due to high risks, high transport fees, poor store management, and other factors, he said.

His company had set up BB Link, a platform that enables businesses to directly sell merchandise to traditional markets and grocery stores through its warehouse and logistics system, he said.

With this platform, businesses can easily and quickly access traditional distribution channels cost effectively thanks to the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, he said.

The BB Link platform would also operate in other countries like India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand and so Vietnamese firms could take advantage of it to distribute their products abroad, he added.

The seminar witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Aptus Capital and BB Link to offer investment services.

BB Vietnam also signed an MoU with the VCCI to organise training courses and other activities to enable local firms to capitalise on its multi-task distribution platform as well as support them to boost export to other markets. — VNS