In the first 7 months of 2024, Vietnam's exports to Australia reached 3.76 billion USD, up 32.1% over the same period. Illustrative photo

Statistics from the Trade Office show that in the first 7 months of 2024, Vietnam's exports to Australia reached 3.76 billion USD, up 32.1% over the same period; Vietnam's imports from Australia reached 4.47 billion USD, down 10.9% over the same period. Total import-export turnover reached 8.23 ​​billion USD, up 4.7% over the same period.

Based on the above figures, the Trade Office believes that the bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and Australia has recovered positively. In particular, Vietnam's exports to Australia continue to grow strongly, recording an increase of 44% in July 2024 and 32.1% in the first 7 months of 2024, making an important contribution to the growth of the total bilateral import-export turnover. The growth rate of exports to the Australian market is among the highest among Vietnam's export markets in the world.

However, according to the Trade Office, despite many advantages (both sides participate in bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements, have advantages in trade routes by waterway and air, etc.), in recent years, the export of goods, especially agricultural products to this market, has had many limitations. One of the reasons is that domestic export enterprises have not paid attention to, nor joined forces to build brands for industries, key products, and corporate brands.

“Hanoi - Vietnam” booth at Foodservice Australia Fair 2024

Mr. Nguyen Phu Hoa shared that building Vietnamese product brands in foreign markets is always an interesting story, including success stories and many failures. In the Australian market as well, with national pride, over the past years, the Trade Office has worked with domestic export enterprises to build brands for Vietnamese industries, products and businesses in this market.

Australia is a market with high quality standards, consumers have a deep interest in imported products. Regulations in Australia are designed very clearly and in detail (such as: Brands owned by Australians, percentage of product ingredients in Australia...) so that consumers here can be proud of domestic brands. It can be said that this is a "very sophisticated" way to protect and enhance pride in domestic production.

Grasping this consumption trend, in order for Vietnamese goods to "firmly establish" in the Australian market, since 2020, the Vietnam-Australia Trade Office has surveyed the current status of Vietnamese brand building in this market. Through the survey, the Trade Office found that, for deeply processed products, industrial products are inherently associated with the brand of the enterprise, however, enterprises have not yet united to build a national brand together.

Or for fresh and processed agricultural products, through the survey, the Trade Office found that the current situation of no brand leads to no one taking responsibility for product quality. For example: Fresh fruits are sold by weight (kg) without a brand; many times due to objective reasons, ships arrive late, affecting the quality of goods... Not to mention, the design of the brand, packaging and product value are still subjective and domestic; there has been no survey or research on consumer tastes in the host country.

"The above reasons have hindered the export of Vietnamese goods to the Australian market" - the Trade Office commented and said that, to boost exports and increase market share of goods, one of the leading solutions is to unite to build the brand and reputation of each product, industry, and enterprise, thereby building a national brand.

Trade connection to bring Vietnamese rice and products to remote areas of Australia such as the Northern Territory of Australia, 6 hours flight from Sydney.

As for rice, in 2019, Australian consumers only knew about Thai rice products. Even during the Trade Office's survey in 2019, Trade Office officials felt sad that while Vietnam is a rice exporting powerhouse, in Australia, when organizing charity programs for overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people had to spend Vietnamese money to buy Thai rice to give back to Vietnamese people.

To overcome this situation, in 2019 in the Philippines, Vietnam's ST25 rice brand won the first prize for the world's best rice. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia simultaneously launched promotional programs to introduce ST25 rice in Australia, even though at that time this rice brand had not been exported to Australia.

But it was this timely intervention that prompted many importers in Australia to learn about and be interested in importing ST25 rice. Immediately afterwards, to increase the market share of Vietnamese rice in this market, the Trade Office launched a series of major events to try ST25 rice and other types of Vietnamese rice in Sydney as well as in distant states.

In addition, the Trade Office also connects to bring Vietnamese rice to remote areas of Australia, such as the Northern Territory of Australia, a 6-hour flight from Sydney. With the unprecedented efforts of the Trade Office as well as the efforts of the export business community, Vietnamese rice with all kinds of brands has now been popularized in Australia.

Not only stopping at promoting and building rice brands in the Australian market, the Trade Office has also made efforts to protect the ST25 rice brand in this market. When the story of the ST25 trademark being stolen happened, although there were many opinions that this was the name of a rice variety, and at the same time a business asset, and businesses had to spend money to protect it, however, the Trade Office proactively worked strongly with the Australian authorities, as well as proactively with companies and businesses that had registered the ST25 trademark and widely informed this market.

“Successfully protecting the ST25 rice brand in the Australian market not only helps protect the domestic export industry but also creates opportunities to help the ST25 rice brand become more popular in this market” - Mr. Nguyen Phu Hoa informed and said that the story of brand building does not stop at the ST25 rice product. Through the success of ST25, the Trade Office promotes the slogan: “ Vietnam, the land of the best rice in the world ” so that other Vietnamese rice and glutinous rice varieties can enjoy the same position.

Not only stopping at rice, the story of building Vietnamese product brands in Australia also started with durian, fresh coconut, or lychee... The journey of building brands for these products is a long, very long story...