Under Da Nang’s strategy to expand its consumer market into other countries, Laos and Thailand are considered the city’s 2 most important markets.

Customers at the BQ Shoe store

According to the latest statistics released by the city’s Trade Promotion Centre, around 20 Da Nang businesses have established bilateral cooperative relationships with partners in Laos and Thailand.

Da Nang’s key exports include footwear, rubber products, fishing rods, and fine art handicrafts like rattan and bamboo products.  In addition, the city is importing from other countries such raw materials as synthetic rubber, chemical products, plastic beads, modern medicines, and materials used in the textiles and garments industry.

The BQ Shoe company is one of the city’s businesses which has expanded its consumer markets into Laos.  To date, the company’s products have won the trust of its Laotian clients.

The company’s General Director Phan Hai remarked, “The positive results were mainly attributed to the fact that Laos and Viet Nam share similarities in business culture and customer habits.  Furthermore, there is a large number of Vietnamese people living and working in Laos, and Vietnamese businesses are always made welcome to operate there”.

Although Laos and Thailand are the city’s traditional markets, the number of local businesses which have established bilateral cooperation with partners in these countries is still modest.

A representative from the municipal Trade Promotion Centre said, “The reasons are thought to be that Da Nang’s businesses have yet to pay enough attention to participating in trade fairs in the 2 countries to introduce their products.  The centre had appealed for local businesses to join the recent Viet Nam-Laos Trade Fair 2016 held in Vientiane City between 7 - 11 July.  However, only 10 local businesses eventually participated in the event”.

It is reported that the Laotian market is not attractive to Da Nang businesses due to the country’s non-preferential import quota policies and its low population growth.  In addition, the city’s products find it very hard to compete with similar items from Thailand and China in both their design and prices.

In attempting to encourage more Da Nang businesses to expand their consumer markers into Laos and Thailand, the focus is on granting more funds from the city’s budget to facilitate local businesses to join trade fairs in these countries and to conduct market surveys there.  Greater efforts are being made to help local businesses seek trade opportunities with Laotian and Thai partners.