HCM CITY — Businesses and business groups have called on Vietnamese ambassadors and trade counsellors abroad to help them promote exports.

According to Trần Việt Anh, deputy chairman of the HCM City Union of Business Associations, the city has 320,000 companies, which account for a large share of the country’s exports.

The city’s business community needs regular support in promoting trade.

Besides, in the era of Industry 4.0, businesses have faced trade disputes.

Many businesses buy goods from foreign suppliers outside Cambodia but are asked to transfer money to accounts in Cambodia, and need the Vietnamese embassy to verify the companies’ antecedents.

Besides exports, firms also invest abroad, and need support in carrying out the formalities, verifying information and other.

Anh was speaking at a meeting yesterday between businesses and 19 ambassadors and consuls general who will soon be stationed in Japan, India, Germany, Rumania, Denmark, Russia, China, Laos, and Bulgaria among other countries.

The meeting was meant to help the diplomats understand businesses’ requirements and how they can help promote Vietnamese investment and trade abroad.

Nguyễn Văn Tuấn from the Việt Nam Cotton and Spinning Association said the country’s garment and textile products were exported mainly to the US, EU, Japan, and South Korea, with sales to other markets being modest.

So the industry needed greater support from Vietnamese trade offices in other markets, he said.

Many businesses were buying cotton from foreign companies, but when cotton prices rose sharply, many suppliers did not make delivery or delivered goods of inferior quality, causing difficulties, he said.

A 400ha textile and garment zone was being built, and trade counsellors and ambassadors should apprise foreign investors so that they could invest in it, he said.

Nguyễn Văn Khánh, general secretary of the Leather and Footwear Association of HCM City, wanted diplomatic agencies to help find outlets for crocodile leather-based products to boost crocodile breeding in the city.

Phạm Sanh Châu, Vietnamese ambassador designate to India, said trade counsellors and ambassadors understand businesses’ requirements and promised support, but said diplomatic missions could not meet all their requirements.

Many businesses emailed embassies asking for information they themselves could easily find on the internet, delegates explained.

According to Phạm Trường Giang, Việt Nam’s consul general in Germany, embassies have very few people but a lot of tasks, and so businesses should ask for specific information and not general information.

But ambassadors and trade counsellors would always assist businesses, he promised. — VNS