FDI enterprises still account for the majority of high-turnover goods exported to the EU such as footwear, phones, components, machinery and equipment.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese enterprises mainly export goods in raw form, follow processing orders from foreign buyers or export raw materials and semi-finished products to EU countries. Many businesses have only participated in some stages of the supply chain, and their ability to meet and comply with quality, technical, hygiene and safety requirements of exported goods is still limited.

The Government's report assesses that this poses challenges for domestic businesses as more and more import markets introduce higher technical standards and non-tariff barriers. To enjoy incentives from signed trade agreements, businesses must proactively meet these standards.

Not to mention, the number of Vietnamese businesses that have built brands to export to the EU is still very small. This reality shows that brand positioning for "made in Vietnam" goods in difficult markets like the EU has not been paid attention and included in development strategies by businesses.

Regarding the issue of taking advantage of opportunities from exports, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, former Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management Research, cited data that the economy's average export turnover growth rate in the 2012-2022 period is 13%; Of which, domestic enterprises increased by 7.7%; FDI enterprises increased by 17.4% (excluding crude oil).

Dr. Cung estimates that the growth rate of FDI's export turnover is nearly 10 percentage points higher than that of domestic enterprises. As a result, the proportion of export turnover of domestic enterprises continuously decreases from 37% in 2012 to 25.4% in 2022; The proportion of FDI enterprises increased correspondingly from 55.7% to more than 74% in the same period.

It is worth noting that expert Nguyen Dinh Cung pointed out that in years with adverse external impacts, the export growth of domestic enterprises often decreases rapidly and is lower than that of FDI enterprises. That partly proves that the resilience of domestic enterprises is lower than that of FDI.

"The economy is increasingly dependent on FDI import and export, which can reduce the economy's resilience and can reduce the level of independence and autonomy of the economy," Mr. Cung warned.

Faced with the above situation, the Government said it would assign ministries and branches to research overall policies, creating conditions for businesses to access and use internal raw material sources, meeting origin criteria according to the regulations of each agreement. determined. At the same time, businesses will receive capital support through credit loans with preferential interest rates in case they want to improve production capacity...

In addition, Vietnamese businesses also need to proactively seek, connect and cooperate with international credit institutions (IFC, ADB, WB or other legal financial sources) to digitally transform and transform. green to meet increasing standards from the EU market.

According to experts, foreign businesses can expand their scale or open new factories. Many investors from Asia, America... when having offices in Europe also promote the construction of factories. in Vietnam, and clearly the amount of Vietnamese processed products exported to Europe has also increased greatly. Even in the past, businesses rarely invested in raw materials. However, after the EVFTA, investors also focused on investing in developing raw material areas, competing with Vietnamese businesses.

With the above warnings, experts believe that this will push Vietnamese businesses to change management and create innovative ways to create suitable products that can compete in an open market.

Minh Toan