Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh has pointed out the three "bottlenecks" that exist in the road to economic recovery following the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, largely in labour supply sources, input supply, and the general market.

 Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh  

His remarks came during the 14th National Assembly (NA)’s ninth session held on June 15 to discuss socio-economic development, emphasising that in order to be proactive in taking measures to restore and promote economic activities in the period after the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative to be able to effectively deal with three major issues.

Firstly, it is essential to reorganise supply chains for industrial production, therefore serving to create sustainability and greater flexibility, while avoiding dependence on a few supply chains, partners, markets, and determining the focus placed on the supporting industry sector.

Moreover, steps can be taken such as restructuring chains to serve industrial production, especially some major local manufacturing and processing industries such as garments and textiles, footwear, electronics, and wood products in a more sustainable manner with partners such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, and India.

Secondly, a particular focus should be placed on promoting export development, taking advantage of opportunities from recently signed free trade agreements, most notably the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the European Union – Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). This should be done alongside immediately reconsidering scenarios for this year’s import and export growth in an effort to bolster exports.

Furthermore, there should be new forms of trade promotion implemented to enhance trade links between Vietnamese firms and their partners abroad who are keen to import from markets that have seen an early recovery, such as China, Taiwan (China), the Republic of Korea, and Japan. In addition, local firms must gradually expand into other markets in line with how the epidemic situation evolves.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade and Amazon are set to deploy a broad range of events such as conferences, seminars, and training courses, to support the export activities of Vietnamese enterprises through their e-commerce platforms to try and build significant brands for domestic products and industries, the Minister said.

Thirdly, Minister Tuan Anh suggested focusing on stimulating consumption domestically whilst accelerating the restructuring of the domestic market and developing e-commerce locally now the epidemic has been controlled. Particularly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has made efforts to focus on a "project to develop an e-commerce application platform" that can promote the connection between manufacturers and distributors on the basis of closely linked information from manufacturers to the distribution system whilst receiving State support.

Finally, it can be considered necessary to continue with activities aimed at connecting supply and meeting the demand of goods, in order to facilitate the consumption of domestically produced items through both traditional and modern distribution channels. This can be done by implementing schemes which encourage Vietnamese people to priotise the use of local goods, he emphasised.