Delegates visit a booth at the Business Matching and HCM City Products Week 2024 – Food and Beverages in HCM City on December 11. — Photo courtesy of ITPC

HCM CITY — The Business Matching and HCM City Products Week 2024 - Food and Beverages that opened in HCM City on Wednesday offers businesses in the two sectors to introduce their products and brands to export partners, sourcing companies and local and international consumers.

Jointly organised by the Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City (ITPC) and the Food and Foodstuff Association of HCM City (FFA), the event has attracted nearly 100 enterprises in the consumer goods, dry foods, seafood, confectionery - sweets, beverages, and clean agriculture sectors.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, ITPC director Trần Phú Lữ said: “The participating enterprises aspire to showcase high-quality foods, reputable brands, attractive designs, competitive prices, and compliance with export standards and food safety regulations.”

Each product on display reflects the industry’s advancements in innovation, technology application, and creativity to meet emerging consumption trends and establish a green, clean, organic, and environmentally friendly food industry.

Lý Kim Chi, FFA chairwoman, said: “The food industry plays an important role in the city's economic development, accounting for about 20 per cent of its industrial production. HCM City’s food products not only meet domestic demand but also reach out to the world, conquering tough international markets such as the EU, the US and Japan.”

She noted that new consumer trends such as green food and alternative products and high traceability requirements have created a new development path for the food industry.

Concurring, Lữ said food enterprises have steadily improved product quality, adopted new production technologies, shifted to green production models, and embraced digital transformation and use natural resources and energy more efficiently, enabling them to meet stringent standards in demanding markets.

They have also worked hard to obtain halal certification to access Islamic markets, he said.

At the exhibition the organisers will host thematic seminars, business matching sessions for local producers and distributors to meet potential domestic and foreign partners and a business matching conference for Vietnamese businesses and modern distribution systems.

The expo at the Export Showroom on Nguyễn Huệ Street in District 1 will go on until December 17. — VNS