The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade) and Chinese retailer Alibaba officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding on March 16 to assist Vietnamese small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to access international markets through cross-border e-commerce platforms.

An overview of the signing ceremony between the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency and Alibaba on March 16 in Hanoi. Photo: Bao Cong thuong

Under the agreement, the two sides will work together in three main fields, including: exporting, developing Vietnamese trademarks, and enhancing the cross-border e-commerce capacities of Vietnamese businesses.

Alibaba, the global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company, has more than 260 million active shoppers in 190 countries and territories. “This is a potential market for Vietnamese businesses to expand their scale and engage customers around the world”, Do Thang Hai, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade told the signing ceremony and the B2B international trade and e-commerce summit 2021 held in Hanoi. 

In the next three years, the Vietnam Trade Promotion Department and Alibaba plan to continue implementing a series of training programs to improve Vietnamese businesses’ capacity.

By learning from Alibaba’s experience in China, about 1,200 Vietnamese businesses and officials from trade promotion organizations and industry associations will benefit from this program.

Alibaba found that the advantages of Vietnamese sellers include: their improved production capacity in terms of quality and quantity, diversified product portfolio, competitive prices, and a long-run export strategy. Some Vietnamese categories such as food, beverage, home application, and construction have seen impressive growth through e-commerce.

By pledging to support 10,000 Vietnamese SMEs for five years and accelerate their digital transformation, the Chinese company will continue to work closely with local authorities and provide businesses with efficient services and solutions.