Increase competitive advantage, promote exports

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh presents logos to honor businesses with products achieving the Vietnam National Brand title in 2022. (Photo: VNA)

April 20 was chosen by the Prime Minister as "Vietnam Brand Day" to honor and promote the national brand and image, Vietnamese brands through products achieving the Vietnam National Brand, thereby contributing to the development of foreign trade, enhancing national competitiveness and the value of the National Brand in the international arena.

According to the assessment of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in 2023, despite many difficulties and challenges for the global economy, including Vietnam, due to increasingly fierce geostrategic competition and trade wars between major countries; geopolitical instability and local conflicts still exist in many places around the world, negatively affecting investment, production, business and import-export activities of the business community.

However, with the timely and effective participation of ministries, branches and localities; especially the determination and high spirit of solidarity, the Vietnamese business community has made efforts to act, overcome difficulties and challenges to recover and develop, contributing to promoting Vietnam to become the 4th largest economy in ASEAN and the 40th in the world, with international trade scale in the TOP 20 globally.

Notably, Vietnam National Brand continued to rise strongly with a growth rate of 102% in the period from 2019-2023, ranking 33rd in the Top 121 strong national brands in the world evaluated and ranked by the world's leading brand valuation consultancy - Brand Finance.

To better understand the Vietnam National Brand Program, Mr. Hoang Minh Chien, Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Agency (Ministry of Industry and Trade) about the above contents.

- Can you tell us how Vietnam's national brand value is currently growing?

Mr. Hoang Minh Chien: National Brand is assessed by international organizations including Brand Finance as one of the fastest growing brands in the past 5 years (from 2019-2023).

Specifically, in 2019, the value of Vietnam's National Brand was only valued at 247 billion USD, but by 2023, this number had nearly doubled, at 498 billion USD, and this is the result of many factors.

First of all, it is the very strong direction and participation of the Government, ministries, branches, localities and the Vietnamese National Brand enterprises themselves. With a value of 498 billion USD in 2023, the Vietnamese National Brand is ranked 33rd out of 121 countries and territories by Brand Finance, which also shows that the Vietnamese National Brand is one of the strong brands in the international arena.

- With such results, what solutions do the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Trade Promotion Agency have to support businesses in increasing competitiveness and boosting exports?

Mr. Hoang Minh Chien: The Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned by the Government to be the lead agency to coordinate with ministries, localities, industry associations, and enterprises to implement the National Brand Program with the goal of building strong national product brands and business brands to promote to the world that Vietnam has prestigious and quality products and services, thereby enhancing the value of the Vietnamese National Brand.

Mr. Hoang Minh Chien, Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Agency, spoke to the press. (Photo: Duc Duy/Vietnam+)

The solutions are focused primarily on raising awareness, first of all, of society and the business community, of the meaning and role of building, developing and protecting brands.

We all know that brands contribute a lot to the value of a product. In recent times, Vietnam has exported many products with the highest quantity and value in the world, but most of them have not been associated with a brand story, but are still in the form of raw products, newly processed products, and when sold in the international market, they sometimes have to stand under another brand or label. That is also the story and main content that the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the National Brand Program will aim for, which is to raise awareness of the business community and society about the role of brands.

The next group of solutions is to improve capacity to support Vietnamese enterprises to have the capacity to build, manage and develop product brands to approach and meet the criteria of the National Brand Program, thereby forming strong brands, thereby exporting to the world to bring greater added value.

We all know that the current export value of domestic enterprises only contributes about 27% of Vietnam's total export turnover in 2023 and the group of foreign-invested enterprises (FDI) is the main contributor to the export proportion.

By developing and building such strong brands and with the value of our products enhanced, we expect to contribute to some extent to increasing the proportion of domestic enterprises' export turnover in the total export turnover.

Finally, the group of solutions to promote and advertise the National Brand Program will also promote and advertise products that meet the criteria of the National Brand Program, so that domestic and foreign consumers will know about them, which will not only bring greater efficiency to foreign trade development but also enhance Vietnam's national competitiveness.

- This year's theme is to elevate core values, so can you clarify the meaning of this theme?

Mr. Hoang Minh Chien: The theme of this year is to enhance Core Values. We must define what the core values ​​of the Vietnam National Brand program are, including 3 large, consistent and developed value groups as well as promote and improve them right from the beginning of the program assigned by the Government to the Ministry of Industry and Trade to implement.

First is the quality group, for a product brand to have prestige, it must first have quality and that quality must have the brand value of the product.

Next is the innovation group - a strong brand must have innovation, creativity and difference compared to other products and will bring innovation from that business from the highlight of that business (the business can apply advances in science and technology, can research and launch new products, products following the orientation not only of Vietnam but also of developed countries such as towards Green economy, circular economy, sustainable economy). Therefore, businesses cannot stop their innovation, because if they stop, they will fall behind.

Finally, the core value lies in pioneering capacity. It can be asked why in the same industry, one brand is stronger than another and develops better. Here, the pioneering factor is shown in the prestige of the leader who owns that product brand, the financial and investment potential, and the industry leadership of that enterprise.

Strong brands help businesses increase export value. (Photo: Duc Duy/Vietnam+)

The combination of these three core values ​​will create a strong brand and in the National Brand Program, we always aim to improve, support and guide the business community, aiming to elevate the above three factors.

Currently, Vietnam has deeply integrated into the world economy by participating in a series of free trade agreements (FTAs). Vietnamese products have many advantages because the partners in those free trade agreements all give preferential treatment in terms of tariffs and market penetration for our products. Therefore, in order to penetrate and have a good position for development, we must strongly build our brand and through the above 3 core values.

Increasing core values ​​is also the guiding principle not only for this year's program but will be throughout the formation and development process, not only now but also in the future.

The recognition of the 3 core value groups was not invented by Vietnam or the program, but was researched and synthesized from many international studies and programs related to brand building and development of countries.

Thank you!

Source: https://congthuong.vn/xay-dung-thuong-hieu-manh-gia-tang-loi-the-canh-tranh-thuc-day-xuat-khau-315720.html