By Kristina Noelle S. Andaya | Knowledge Processing Division | DTI-Export Marketing Bureau

07 July 2018

Published also in Business Mirror

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) spearheaded an Outbound Business Mission (OBM) to Vietnam on June 19-21, 2018 that booked sales of $265,000 to its Philippine participants.

Ceferino Rodolfo, Undersecretary of the DTI Industry Development and Trade Policy Group; and DTI Export Marketing Bureau Director Senen Perlada had a bilateral meeting with Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Khanh.  They were assisted by DTI-EMB Assistant Director Agnes Perpetua Legaspi.

The business mission was the result of Rodolfo’s and Tran’s meeting on April 24, 2017 when Tran invited Rodolfo to organize a Philippine mission to Vietnam to beef up the bilateral trade of the two countries.

Last year, the country’s trade deficit with Vietnam amounted to about $1.6 billion.  In particular, the Philippines will offer products Vietnam normally imports from Thailand.

In this OBM to Vietnam, 18 companies with 32 representatives participated. Six were exporters of processed food, five were in personal care, one in garments, another in franchising, one in motorcycle, one in food machinery and three in other sectors.

During the Vietnam-Philippines Business Opportunity Forum, the Philippine companies introduced their products to potential buyers and importers.

Part of the business matching was the market-scanning activity involving visits to Aeon Mall, a specialist shopping mall in Vietnam. Some companies were able to visit the mall and helped to gain distributors. They also checked the supermarket’s Asian section where Philippine products were not that visible except for Universal Robina Corp.-Vietnam (URC-VN) products.

The business delegation was invited by URC-VN and Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) for a briefing and plant and beverage tour.

Binh Duong province in Vietnam is home to the first VSIP established back in 1996. VSIP is a self-contained industrial park with modern facilities such as ready-built factories, and full infrastructure facilities including electricity, treated water, sewerage treatment, and telecommunications for investors to set up their manufacturing plants. The Philippine companies operating in VSIP are URC- VN, Oishi, Unilab, Rebisco, and Green Cross.

The delegates also learned from URC-VN as the company shared what they learned in sustaining their company’s operation in Vietnam.