Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bến Tre Nguyễn Hữu Lập addresses the seminar “E-commerce-breakthrough solutions for businesses”, held in the southern province of Bến Tre on Tuesday. — Photo bentre.gov.vn

HÀ NỘI — E-commerce allows small and medium enterprises to close the gap between them and large enterprises thanks to the equal and flexible competitiveness of the digital business environment.

The remark was made by Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bến Tre Nguyễn Hữu Lập at the seminar titled ‘E-commerce-breakthrough solutions for businesses’, held in the southern province of Bến Tre on Tuesday.

The event, attended by provincial authorities and more than 300 enterprises in the Mekong Delta region, aimed to share and update information on the trend of e-commerce development in the country. It created favourable conditions for enterprises of all economic sectors to approach e-commerce solution providers, gradually exploit the benefits of e-commerce, boosting brand promotion and increasing business efficiency.

"Thanks to e-commerce, consumers can access an unlimited source of diversified brands and products," Lập told the seminar, co-organised by Bến Tre Department of Industry and Trade, the Việt Nam E-Commerce Association and the Department of E-Commerce and Digital Economy, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

However, at present, many businesses had not grasped and fully exploited the advantages of e-commerce but still focused on traditional sales channels, Lập said.

At the seminar, experts said that the development of science and technology and drastic changes in production methods, management, services and trade brought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution required businesses to innovate thinking, build online business models with abundant supply systems to enter the market, meeting the requirements of distributors and importers.

Nguyễn Ngọc Dũng, Vice Chairman of Việt Nam E-Commerce Association (VECOM) said that in 2018, Việt Nam witnessed strong growth of e-commerce with an average rate of over 30 per cent. E-commerce sales posted over US$4 billion in 2015 and reached $7.8 billion in 2018. They are expected to touch $13 billion by 2020.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade of Bến Tre Province Nguyễn Văn Niệm, provincial leaders pay special attention and create favourable conditions for enterprises to develop e-commerce. Currently, the number of businesses applying e-commerce to business activities and trade is increasing.

Notably, since April, Bến Tre Department of Industry and Trade has co-operated with the Việt Nam E-Commerce Association and Lazada Group to implement the program "Online Day of Bến Tre Coconut Village". So far, 16 enterprises, co-operatives and coconut villages in Bến Tre are participating in the programme, selling 1,877 kinds of coconut products.

Niệm said that at present, Bến Tre Department of Industry and Trade was planning to build an e-commerce platform to sell specialties of the province to help local businesses promote and sell goods.

In the future, the Department will continue to support local businesses in developing e-commerce such as organising training courses, co-ordinating with Lazada to promote local products, encourage businesses to participate in sales on lazada.vn, building free websites for businesses, develop an online brand set for key products of Bến Tre province, Niệm said. — VNS