The Covid-19 pandemic has become a traumatic issuefor businesses, but in the context of blocked trade around the world, many Vietnamese companies have acted quickly to turn the situation around, seeking new export markets to bring in millions of dollars.

Production activities of shrimp for export at Sao Ta Company

Maintaining growth

As one of the major seafood exporters in the Mekong Delta, Sao Ta Food Joint Stock Company has had many creative ways to overcome the pandemic, stabilize production and maintain exports. According to Ho Quoc Luc, Chairman of Sao Ta's Board of Directors, in early February 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic started, the first thing Sao Ta did was "clean up" the warehouse.

The results are very positive, compared to 2019, inventories decreased by over 40%.

“This helps Sao Ta reduce bank loans, while minimizing the risk of declining goods when Covid-19 spreads, reducing demand. This is a lesson from 9/11 andthe world economic crisis in 2008,” Luc said.

The next thing is that enterprises maintain regular contact with customers from other markets toget updates on the situation, especially in countries consuming many goods of enterprises to prepare suitable resources for each order. Due to the correct assessment of the situation, none of Sao Ta's shipments are in unfinished production or canceled by the customer.

In parallel, Sao Ta applies a flexible business plan because consumers' income is reduced and purchasing power is limited. Enterprises change the process, packing "lighter" with more money, making it easier to purchase; at the same time, focusing on supermarkets and stores more than restaurants and hotels, but basically not taking any channel lightly.

The early introduction of appropriate solutions and adapting to market conditions has helped businesses not only maintain revenue during the pandemic, but also maintain impressive growth momentum. In the first 10 months of 2020, Sao Ta's sales of goods reached US$161 million, equivalent to the whole of 2019 and increased 19% over the same period.

Similarly, at Nafoods Group Joint Stock Company, a company specializing in processing and exporting fresh fruit products, fruit juices, dried fruit, a series of difficulties arose during the pandemic.

Specifically, the export of fresh fruit wascongested, a series of orders are delayed or canceled, the cash flow is slow because customers have not paid yet. Meanwhile, logistics costs skyrocket.

In that context, Nafoods had to flexibly respond to turn things around. Specifically, the amount of fresh fruit that cannot be exported is put into processing. At the same time the company increases online activities to find customers; restructuring the management system.

As a result, the decline in fresh fruit exports is gradually offset by processed products, as well as value-added products. Currently, on average, each month Nafoods exports about 60 containers of processed goods and nearly a dozen containers of value-added goods. According to Nguyen Manh Hung, General Director of Nafoods, many value-added products of the company sell very well online. For example, in Russia and other Russian-speaking markets that are very fond of the plastic drying products of Nafoods, there are months when the company exports up to 25 containers of this item. Along with that, a lot of cost savings are thanks to the restructuring of the management system,helping the company maintain its growth year on year.

Develop new markets

In the midst of the pandemic, Vinamilk created a streak when exporting the first batch of condensed milk to China at the end of March 2020 – a time when the country was still applying strict preventive measures. Vinamilk's export development strategy is "tailor-made" to suit the characteristics of each market, in this case China.

Condensed milk is an advantageous traditional product of Vinamilk. And this is a carefully calculated step when the trend of condensed milk consumption in China is still on the rise, but in the billion-population market there are three dairy companies in the global top 20.

China's import volume of this item from other countries has nearly doubled in the four years from 2016 to 2019. According to Vo TrungHieu, Vinamilk's International Business Director, asChina is a very promising market with a large population with many trading gateways, the company has suitable plans to develop, as well as to double the export output to this 1.4-billion population market in the 2020-2021 period.

Also at ThanhThanh Cong - Bien Hoa Joint Stock Company (TTC Sugar), the raw material area has now been expanded to nearly 64,000 hectares in three countries – Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia.Areas in Laos and Cambodia are oriented to develop organic materials to produce organic sugar according to international standards.

Recently, TTC Sugar overcame the most difficult requirements and successfully exported the first 500 tons of organic molasses to the US market, bringing the company's total export markets to 24 countries. Besides, TTC Sugar is also planning to conquer two fastidious markets – Korea and Japan.

Meanwhile, at Vina T&T Company, Vietnam's leading fruit exporter, besides improving fruit preservation and processing, and diversifying markets, the company also negotiates with farmers to have technical measures to adjust the tree's fruit-bearing seasons to avoid congestion of goods.

In particular, during the pandemic, theUS quarantine expert returned home atthe end of March, causing fruit exports to fall into a state of paralysis. Refusing to surrender to the circumstances, Vina T&T proactively proposed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to work with the US Embassy to arrange staff of the Office of the US Plant and Animal Quarantine Agency (APHIS) to monitor irradiation treatment. Thanks to the proactive suggestion of Vina T&T, although the quarantine expert was absent for six months, the fruit export activities to the US were still guaranteed. During this time, the amount of Vietnamese fruit exported to the US was still over 2,000 tons.

Nguyen Dinh Tung, General Director of Vina T&T,said currently the company's exported fruit products are still being consumed very well. Typically, coconuts are exported at 4-5 containers / week, breast milk products are also exported by air with an output of 4-5 tons / week. In particular, the company has expanded rice exports to Australia, helping to diversify products.

It can be said that thanks to the proactive and early response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have quickly turned the situation around and achieved remarkable business results.