The event was held to seek solutions to foster sustainable development for Vietnam’s commodity market, promote competitiveness and the position of Vietnamese enterprises, and work out market and product development strategies for the new period, reported NDO.

Participant at the forum discussed branding strategies for businesses in the open market context, particularly in the context of changing consumer behavior due to COVID-19.

While e-commerce is vital to Vietnam's development, 80 percent of the country’s population has not accessed online trading yet, leaving huge room for growth, according to experts.

At the forum, Hoang Quoc Quyen, representative of Tiki in the north, said that 85 percent of the e-commerce serves the urban market mostly in Hanoi and HCM City, which accounts for 20 percent of the population, while the rest of the 80 million people in rural areas are not yet included in the system, said Vietnam Plus.

"There is a huge market for local businesses to grow bigger serving 80 million people in rural areas with their products. By bringing good products to the low-income people in rural places, local enterprises could approach a huge market with less competition," Quyen from Tiki told the forum.

According to Vietnam News, Nguyen Thi Minh Huyen, deputy director of the Department of E-Commerce and Digital Economy, Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), said Vietnam has great potential for digital economic development.

She said e-commerce is an important component of the digital economy with a growth rate of more than 25 percent per year and will keep growing in the next five years, the official added, highlighting there is an opportunity for digital economic development, especially in the context of COVID-19.

Vietnam is aiming to have the digital economy account for 20 percent of total GDP by 2025 and be one of the 50 leading countries in the information industry.

“Vietnam currently has about 500,000 small and medium enterprises, of which 90 percent are small businesses. Previously, small businesses did not pay attention to their brands, but the situation has changed in the last 3-5 years,” Mr. Vu Xuan Truong, from BCSI said.

He said many SMEs have built their brands, thinking a brand as a weapon to compete in the market.

In this case, building a brand with a visual image was an effective way to enter the minds of customers who were spending a lot of time on social networks, Vietnam Insider quoted the BCSI representative./.

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