Nguyễn Tuấn, deputy director of the Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City, speaks at a conference to review the centre’s performance last year and set tasks for this year. — VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City will focus on improving trade promotion in terms of both quality and quantity to help Vietnamese firms better exploit their markets.

Speaking at a meeting in HCM City on January 14 to review the centre’s performance last year and set plans for this year, Nguyễn Tuấn, its deputy director, said trade promotion activities would focus on helping businesses better exploit Southeast Asia and access key markets like the EU, Japan, South Korea, and China.

Besides, overseas business trips, B2B matching, seminars, and other activities would be organised to promote exports to new markets, especially countries that are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Việt Nam-Eurasian Economic Union FTA and the EU-Việt Nam FTA, he said.

“In addition, supporting businesses with maintaining and developing the domestic market is a goal that ITPC always aspires for.

“In 2020 ITPC will further promote links between businesses and domestic and international supermarkets such as Aeon, Lotte, Emart, Big C, MM Mega Market, Co.opmart, and Satra Food and e-commerce sites Alibaba and Amazon to enable more local products to enter these modern distribution systems, he said.

“More training courses will be organised to enable businesses to meet the standards and procedures to bring their products into supermarkets.”

It would organise trade fairs and exhibitions in HCM City and other cities and provinces in the south to promote products made by HCM City-based firms, he said.

Speaking about investment promotion, he said the ITPC would focus on attracting foreign investment in key projects under the city’s seven breakthrough programmes, in four key industrial sectors, nine priority services sectors, innovative urban areas, and others, with priority given to modern and environment-friendly technologies.

The centre would seek to provide information about domestic and foreign markets, the city’s investment environment and sectors in which the city is soliciting investment, he added.

Bùi Thị Thanh An, deputy director general of the Việt Nam Trade Promotion Agency, hailed the efforts made by the centre last year but called on it to further reform its promotional activities.

Last year the ITPC organised 203 trade and investment promotion activities, greatly contributing to attracting more investment to the city and enabling businesses to expand market share.

The city’s exports were worth nearly US$39.7 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 17.3 per cent.

It attracted $8.3 billion in foreign investment to rank second in the country behind only Hà Nội. — VNS