Retail Market Promises Vibrant Development in 2011 (04/3)
04/03/2011 - 11 Lượt xem
Explaining this lack of activity of the Vietnamese retail market, experts said that Vietnam would officially open its market for fully foreign invested retailers at the beginning of 2009. However, at this time, the world fell into an economic and financial crisis. All businesses faced difficulties and had to review their policies on capital and investments in other countries. Thus, it is understandable for multi-national retailers to come to Vietnam later than expected. In addition, when investing in another country, those companies have to do a careful survey of the market and look for partners, thus, it took them time to negotiate. Therefore, after the crisis ended in 2010, the Vietnamese retail market will regained its vibrancy no sooner than the 2011-2012 period.
According to RNCOS, a market research company, although the Vietnamese retail market is smaller than other developing countries in Asia, it promises dynamic development in 2008-2012. Retail sales increased from US$23.7 billion in 2005 to nearly US$39 billion in 2008. With the fact that the Vietnamese government has allowed foreign retailers to take part in its market, it is estimated that retail sales will exceed US$85 billion and modern retail channels will play a key role in future development. AT Kearney, a global management consultancy company assessed that in terms of retail market attraction, Vietnam ranks 14, a higher position than Indonesia and Malaysia.
Steven HL Goh, the executive chairman of Retail Asia Publishing said that compared with other retail markets in the region which are saturated markets, Vietnam has many opportunities to develop. Apart from Dairy Farm (Hong Kong, China), Lotte (the Republic of Korea), and Gouco Group (Netherlands) which have constructed large shopping centers in Vietnam since the end of 2010, other leading global retailers have started to study the Vietnamese market and raised the possibility of jumping into Vietnam.
At the end of 2010, by signing an agreement with Trung Nguyen Group to open 500 stores in Vietnam in the next five years, Ministop, a Japanese company which controls a chain of convenience stores, officially decided to enter the Vietnamese market.
Apart from agreement between Trung Nguyen and Ministop, NTUC FairPrice (Singapore) signed a contract with Saigon Co-op to open a chain of supermarkets in Vietnam. Ng Ser Miang, the chairman of NTUC FairPrice, said that he wants to contribute to Vietnam's retail market development through the construction of supermarkets across Vietnam. Its supermarkets sell a wide range of domestic and import products and FairPrice products. It is estimated that the first supermarket of FairPrice will be opened by 2012.
Tesco Plc (England), the world's second largest retailer is investing tens of billions of US Dollars into Asian retail markets. It considers Vietnam among the most attractive destinations. At present, Tesco is the leading company in the Thai and Malaysian retail markets. Tesco is present in 15 countries, including Vietnam. At the end of December 2010, it chose New World Fashion Group as a long-term partner in Vietnam. (New World Fashion was established in 1990 and has its headquarters in London. New World Fashion is one of the leading groups in Europe which produces luxury fashion products for women). This is Tesco's first step jumping into the Vietnamese market.
Despite a number of obstacles such as poor infrastructure and high retail space lease rates, it is estimated that the Vietnamese retail market will see a dynamic development in 2011. Appropriate authorities are paying special attention to improving distribution and the retail channel system. Domestic businesses have made enormous efforts to strengthen their competitiveness and look for partners to exploit this potential market./.
Source: VEN.
