HCM CITY — A campaign aimed at getting locals to buy locally produced goods has yielded positive results.

The “Vietnamese give priority to using Vietnamese goods” campaign took place in HCM City between 2015-17. 

Speaking at a meeting in HCM City yesterday to review the campaign, Vice Chairman of the HCM City Fatherland Front Committee Trần Tấn Ngời  said many activities like trade fairs and marketing campaigns were organised to promote the use of local products.

"Companies’ awareness of the importance of the domestic market has improved and they now pay attention to local customers’ tastes and seek to expand their distribution networks, even to remote areas," he said.

"Vietnamese goods now account for a large proportion of sales in the city’s wholesale and retail system," he said.

At the end of last year the city had 239 traditional markets, 207 supermarkets and 43 shopping malls.

Most large distribution systems in the city actively participated in the campaign. The ratio of domestic goods sold at supermarkets is now between 65-95 per cent, he said.

At Co.opmart, Vietnamese goods account for 90-93 per cent, and the company organised mobile sales trips to take them to rural areas, he said.

According to permanent Deputy Secretary of Saigon Co.op’s Party Committee Quách Cường Saigon Co.op [which runs Co.opmart] has more than 300 outlets selling essential products and fresh foods, all of which meet safety standards.

It has invested in co-operatives and businesses to produce and supply more high-quality products to consumers.

It has also invested directly or indirectly in other provinces and plans to invest more to develop an organic agricultural model to better meet market demand.

Meanwhile Trần Tấn Ngời admitted that despite achieving encouraging results the campaign had shortcomings because some localities in the city had not implemented it well.

“Most businesses were small or medium-sized with limited competitive capacity, so they faced difficulties in competing with imported products, especially amid deeper international integration,” he said. 

Though official agencies had made efforts to regulate quality and prices, a large number of fake and poor quality goods were still sold in the market, affecting the prestige of Vietnamese goods as well as causing difficulties for domestic businesses in expanding their production and trading, he added.

“A certain segment of consumers, especially those with high incomes, preferred imported goods to those made domestically,” he said.

The campaign continues, and in the next three years the city plans to enhance it to increase consumption and boost the production of high-quality goods to meet domestic and export market demands.

Võ Thị Dung, Deputy Secretary of the city’s Party Committee and head of the campaign’s steering committee, urged relevant agencies to review their publicity methods to improve efficiency.

They should “intensify checks to prevent fake goods” since they threaten consumers’ health. They also need to increase consumer confidence in local products, she said.

Enterprises should focus on improving their production technologies to produce consistently high quality products, she said.

At the meeting 68 businesses and organisations and 25 individuals received certificates of merit from the city People’s Committee for their contributions to the campaign. — VNS