Exporters seek Japan toehold

Exports to Japan have surged after the recent disasters but businesses are finding it difficult to enter the market.

Cao Tien Vi, chairman of the Sai Gon Paper Corporation, said quality was always a priority for the Japanese. They were willing to negotiate on prices but never on quality.

Vi said Japanese importers would refuse to accept a whole shipment if one unit had the smallest mistake.

Vietnamese businesses needed to focus on quality to win trust from Japanese partners, he said.

The HCM City Investment and Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC) agreed, saying the presence of Vietnamese products in Tokyo supermarkets was still limited.

Vietnamese enterprises did not really understand the Japanese market, the centre said, adding that it expected to boost trade promotion and to help the processed food and handicraft sectors enter the Japanese market.

HCM City-based software company Greensun Asoft chairman Nguyen Minh Viet said his company had received a large number of orders from Japan since early June and that his company’s growth would treble year on year.

Sai Gon Food deputy director Le Thi Thanh Lam said exports to Japan were up 10 per cent in the last four months compared with the same period last year.

Seventy per cent of the company’s products, 350 tonnes of seafood, were annually exported to Japan, earning US$1 million, Lam said.

Besides seafood, other commodities including textile and garments, wood products, power cables, equipment and machinery, rice and crude oil have also been exported to Japan.

Export turnover of the textile and garment sector rose by 20 per cent thanks to the positive impacts of the Japan-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and the Viet Nam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.

In recent years, textile exports to Japan increased 12 per cent on average. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam exports, Vietnam exports 2011, Vietnam trade