On Wednesday, the International East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) Trade and Tourism Fair 2017 ended at Da Nang’s 29 March Square on 2 September street.

A stand featuring Hungarian products

The 6-day event featured a total of around 200 domestic and foreign businesses with more than 300 stands.  Twenty-one of them were industrial and trade promotion centres from localities nationwide.  Participating foreign organisations and businesses were the Consulate General of Hungary in Ho Chi Minh City, the Embassy of Indonesia in Viet Nam, the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Cambodian Tourism Promotion Department, and departments of Industry and Trade of Vientiane Capital and the provinces of Savannakhet, Atapu and Sekong in Laos, along with some businesses from Thailand and other countries worldwide. 

The fair’s stands offered a wide range of tourism, trade and investment products, including electrical and electronic devices, information technology, wooden products and furniture, handicrafts, textiles and garments, leather goods and footwear, processed and canned food, and cosmetics.

Most notably, the fair proved to be a great success having attracted about 50,000 visitors in total, and the participating businesses took an estimated nearly 4 billion VND from sales during the fair.

Within the framework of the event, a total of 10 Memoranda of Understanding on bilateral cooperation between the participating businesses were signed.  Also, a workshop on the cooperation and the development of services along the EWEC, and many attractive arts performances were organised during the event.

The fair, indeed, offered a nice chance for the participating businesses to promote supply and demand links as well as seeking trade opportunities with their partners.  Many local supermarkets and distributors such as Intimex and the Thien Phu Specialities Supermarket, grasped the opportunity to source diversified Vietnamese-made products in a bid to bring more choices to their customers.  Included were coffee, avocados, and peppers sourced from Gia Lai Province, honey from Lam Dong Province, oranges, pomelos and rambutan from Vinh Long Province, conical hats from Binh Dinh Province, and domestic and foreign foods.

Mr Prak Chandara from the Cambodian Tourism Ministry said his agency has participated in the annual EWEC Fair for 4 occasions.  He remarked that recent years have seen many open and transparent trade policies for the EWEC countries.  Therefore, the Cambodian government official hoped that trading cooperation activities between his country and Viet Nam would be further enhanced in the years ahead.

Another foreign guest, Ms Keota Pompimay from Laos-based Khammouan Phoniton company specialising in producing wooden products remarked that her country has a  rich history of sophisticated craftsmanship in wood.  She happily said that, during the 6-day fair, her company’s products received high praise from visitors, and many of them made orders.

The EWEC is an economic development programme initiated to promote the development and integration of 4 Southeast Asian countries, namely Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Viet Nam.