Visitors look at products exhibited at the event. — VNS Photo Mai Hương

HÀ NỘI — About 100 Vietnamese enterprises participated in an event with Central Retail Việt Nam and connected online with buyers in Thailand to take advantage of opportunities to export directly to the Thai market without intermediaries.

Central Retail Group in Việt Nam, the owner of Big C and Go! supermarket system, organised a seminar to connect the consumption of Vietnamese products to the group’s retail chain on Saturday.

The seminar is a part of a made-in-Việt Nam goods week, which kicked off in Hà Nội on Friday evening.

Thailand is currently Việt Nam's largest trading partner in ASEAN. Therefore, the need to bring products into modern supermarkets as well as export to the Thai market is a great concern of Vietnamese businesses at this event.

In the opposite direction, purchasing officers of Central Retail in Thailand will also find high-quality Vietnamese goods sources to diversify products on its shelves in Thailand as well as around the world.

Nguyễn Thị Phương, deputy general director of Central Retail Group in Việt Nam, said that the turnover of Vietnamese goods exported through the Central Retail has also increased significantly in recent years, from US$46 million in 2016 to $205 million last year.

This year, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group's buyers in Thailand cannot go directly to Việt Nam to participate in the business matching event. Therefore, the group has deployed an online matching version.

“Central Retail is one of the famous and prestigious retail groups in Thailand. Putting goods into Big C and Go! in Việt Nam will open up great opportunities for businesses to access the Thai market,” said Phương.

She said that Central Retail's products exported to Thailand are mainly non-food products such as garments, footwear and bags. For agricultural products, the group has successfully exported products such as dried fruits, dragon fruits, sweet potatoes, and lychees to Thailand in the past three years.

Lê Việt Nga, deputy director of the Domestic Market Department, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that the introduction of modern distribution systems in general and Central Retail in particular in the consumption of Vietnamese agricultural products and goods was a huge step for Vietnamese agricultural products to perfect the production process, market approach, packaging method as well as the way to advertise, keeping up with modern trends.

From there, it had contributed to promoting the consumption of Vietnamese goods in the domestic market, positioning the brand value of Vietnamese agricultural products in the domestic market as well as raising the level of Vietnamese products in the international market, said Nga.

In particular, the online and offline business matching between Vietnamese businesses and the Central Retail purchasing department in Việt Nam and Thailand would contribute to bringing Vietnamese products to the group's distribution channel in Việt Nam, Thailand and around the world.

The Central Retail Group in Việt Nam in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the People's Committee of Hà Nội launched the made-in-Việt Nam goods week in Hà Nội on Friday evening.

The event has 100 booths, displaying and introducing products including key Vietnamese commodities such as coffee, tea, cashew, pepper, aquatic products, textiles, footwear and bags.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Đỗ Thắng Hải said that in addition to promoting the campaign "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods", the programme also helped businesses overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the domestic market, retail businesses such as Central Retail with a large distribution system would be the most practical marketing and promotion channel, and an effective channel for goods circulation, he added. — VNS