Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has agreed to mark "Vietnam Brand Day" on April 20 each year as a means of honouring and promoting the nation’s brand and image in the context of greater international economic integration.

 Minister of Industry and Trade and Chairman
of the National Brand Council Tran Tuan Anh

As a result of the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, the National Brand Council, the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade made the decision not to organise any commemorative activities this year.

To mark Vietnam Brand Day however, Minister of Industry and Trade and Chairman of the National Brand Council Tran Tuan Anh extended his best wishes in a letter of congratulations addressed to both the Vietnamese business community and enterprises nationwide.

The letter states that the country has maintained high levels of consistent economic growth in recent years, as seen by last year’s impressive results in gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Indeed, the nation’s annual GDP growth reached 7.02%, exceeding the target set by the National Assembly and therefore expanding the Vietnamese economy's scale to over US$262 billion, an all-time high.

This stellar performance can be attributed to the important contributions and tireless efforts put in by the Vietnamese business community to build brands and establish a reputation for the country’s goods and services to be on a par with those of other nations both regionally and globally. 

Despite these positives, this current year has seen an array of complications emerge in the world economy as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic. This has hit many national industries such as production, export, trading, investment, in addition to trade activities in general.

In this context, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh has sent sincere words of encouragement to the domestic business community on behalf of the National Brand Council. 

The letter expresses hope that local firms will remain united in the face of adversity to win the battle against the battle against the pandemic by stabilising production and business activities, as well as maintaining development and protection of their brands as a means of enabling the Vietnamese brand to become a bright spot amid the troubled global supply chain.

Following directions set out by the party and state regarding urgent tasks and solutions to deal with the fallout from the epidemic, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in its capacity as an agency managing the Vietnam National Brand Program, has been providing practical support for domestic enterprises. 

This assistance has mainly come in the form of helping firms to build, develop, and increase the respective strength of their branding for products, thereby creating export momentum to boost production and enabling business activities to quickly recover when the spread of the epidemic is halted, the trade official noted.

With 97 enterprises recognised as having a national brand among a total of 700,000 businesses across the country, the number of enterprises having a national brand is gradually rising in line with improvements made to their capacity.

Last year UK-based Brand Finance, the world’s leading independent brand valuation consultancy with offices located in over 20 countries, unveiled in its Brand Finance Nation Brands 2019 ranking of the 100 most valuable and strongest nation brands, that the Vietnam National Brand was valued at US$247 billion.