Viet Nam is the key source market in Southeast Asia for Japanese importers, a business matching event between HCM City and Japan’s Osaka city has heard.

Speaking at the meeting in HCM City earlier this week, Quyen Thi Thuy Ha, head of the Viet Nam Trade Office branch in Osaka, said Japanese businesses are seeking alternative supply sources for many products they used to buy from China.

They are targeting Southeast Asia, with Viet Nam being the focus, she said.

Viet Nam is very strong in most of the products they are seeking as fruits, seafood, processed foods, and rice noodles, she said.

They are also looking for sources for fine art products and grocery items, she said.

Viet Nam exports a lot of agricultural and processed products to Japan, but mainly for selling to Vietnamese living there and not through large distribution systems such as supermarkets, she said.

To help Vietnamese businesses sell more to Japan in the coming time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Vietnamese Trade Office would step up promotional activities to bring their products to Japanese distribution channels so that they could be sold to local consumers, she said.

In addition to sharing information about the markets, a number of solutions to help Vietnamese enterprises find investment opportunities in Japan were discussed at the event.

Nguyen Phuc Khoa, deputy chairman of the Food and Foodstuff Association of HCM City, said Japan has strict standards for imported food and so it is difficult for Vietnamese companies to market theirs there.

To increase their exports, Vietnamese businesses need to meet the strict standards in the Japanese market and develop brands, he said.

Another delegate pointed out however that meeting Japanese standards makes it easy to meet standards elsewhere, making Vietnamese exports more competitive.

Vietnamese and Japanese companies also discussed co-operation opportunities.

Japan is the fourth biggest trading partner for Viet Nam with the value growing steadily.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, it jumped 7.8 per cent to US$42.7 billion.

In the first nine months of this year it is expected to be $35.7 billion, a 15 per cent year-on-year rise. — VNS