Digital trade a new tool to accelerate exports

With international travel disrupted by social distancing measures as a result of the pandemic, new digital-based trade promotion methods have been researched, tested, and replicated.

At a forum with the theme “Export promotion contributes to economic recovery and development” on December 15, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh said the positive trade results in this extremely difficult context are due to the participation of ministries, agencies, and local authorities.

Thanks to the efforts and initiative of the business community and trade promotion organizations to overcome the difficulties, export promotion activities have seen a strong transformation to adapt to the situation and help maintain production and exports, thereby contributing significantly to the impressive export results in 2021.

“With international travel interrupted by social distancing measures, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has coordinated with ministries, branches, localities, and associations to research and issue timely support mechanisms and test and scale up new models and methods of trade promotion based on accelerating the application of information technology, typically connecting customers online and participating in exhibitions in the digital environment,” Deputy Minister Khanh said.

It is estimated that total import-export turnover in 2021 will reach about $660.1 billion, up 21 per cent compared to 2020. A trade surplus of $2.1 billion is expected, up 0.64 per cent compared to 2020.

Trade promotion activities, however, still exhibit many gaps that require Vietnam to make more effort to improve efficiency and maintain and develop sustainable imports and exports.

These activities need to be based on fundamental and medium-term trade promotion plans, to both take advantage of opportunities from the international market recovering after the pandemic and be suitable with Vietnam’s resources and its capacity to participate.