How can Vietnamese enterprises enter the U.S market?

Cogidos notebooks were exported to the U.S

Recently, Dong Nai Department of Science and Technology in cooperation with US-based United Import-Export Corporation (UIMEX) held the US-Vietnam trade promotion seminar to provide the local enterprises with practical information about how to enter U.S market.

In  two days May 3-4, 2007, a delegation of 18 leading groups in the U.S led by Frances A. Zwenig, High Commissioner of the US-ASEAN Trade Council, arrived in Vietnam to take part in the “Vietnam - a bright future for US businesses” forum, which was co-organised by the US-ASEAN Trade Council and the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry.

The leading US groups will bring high-quality sources of investment to Vietnam and are interested in important fields for Vietnam like infrastructure, financial services, information technology, and education, said Frances A. Zwenig.

Before, many other big groups including the US-based giant retailer Wal-Mart had also come to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities. This meant that Viet Nams position and prestige has been heightened since it joined the WTO and successfully organised the APEC meeting. The U.S now ranks sixth on the list of Vietnamese foreign investors and US companies feel highly enthusiastic about investment in Viet Nam, especially after Intel invested about US$1 billion in projects here.

Vietnam is becoming a favourite destination for US investors, while the Vietnamese enterprises are not enough confident to enter the US market due to the lack of knowledge about US business laws and the small scale of their operation.

Although having to face to some difficulties, the Vietnamese export enterprises must try their best to overcome challenges to approach the US market where is described as a consumer society and its standards for imported products are less strict than those of EU countries.

According to the representative from UIMEX, each year the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars to import goods from Canada, China, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Korea, and UK, etc. Particularly, import turnover of textile and garment totaled US$90 billion, of footwear is around US$60 billion, of electronic products hit more than US$300 billion….Meanwhile, Vietnam’s export turnover to the U.S represent only a small part of total U.S import turnover.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyen Tam Chien said that the U.S enterprises now have a tendency to cooperate with foreign manufacturers to produce their products abroad where the labor force is cheap and plentiful. This is a good opportunity for Vietnamese enterprises if we know how to grasp it.

Reported by K.Loan