By PNA and U.S. News Agency / Asian

Vietnamese firms are eagerly eyeing the Philippines, hoping to penetrate this lucrative market of 96 million people.

With its proximity to Vietnam, the Philippines offers Vietnamese exporters plenty of opportunities but only recently have they begun to explore it.

Cau Tre Export Goods Processing Joint Stock Company is one company that typifies the trend.

Its general director, Tran Thi Hoa Binh, said she spent a lot of time in the Philippine capital Manila, visiting dozens of supermarkets, traditional markets, malls, and distribution channels.

“These visits helped me partly understand the tastes of Philippine consumers and identify the segment appropriate for the company’s main products such as cha gio (spring roll), cha ca (fish paste), and cha tom (shrimp paste on sugarcane),” she told Tuoi Tre newspaper.

“We have for years exported our products to choosy markets like America, Japan, and Europe but still have little knowledge of this neighboring market. So we do not know what kinds of products are to be exported,” Binh said.

The Thanh Phuc Loc Company is also looking for partners in the Philippines to directly export its industrial salt products.

In the last two years, it has exported hundreds of tons of products but only through contracts with a Singaporean partner, Nguyen Hong Phuc, its director, said.

“The demand for industrial salt in the Philippines is great but it is difficult for us to find clients there who want to directly buy our products.”

The Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL) expects to find Philippine investors in Vietnamese real estate projects.

Philippine investors have yet to invest in the Vietnamese property market, unlike Singaporean and South Korean firms but Vietnamese firms had to introduce market segments appropriate for them, HAGL deputy general director Vo Truong Son said.

Market study

Vietnam’s commercial counselor in the Philippines Phan Tuan Khoi said the Philippines’ 96 million people have great demand for various kinds of goods.

“Though it would take just four or five days for Vietnamese businesses to ship their goods to Philippine ports, they did not export to that country since they had not yet found potential distributors there,” he said.

He stressed the need for Vietnamese entrepreneurs to visit the Philippines and carefully study the market and contact the right distribution channels and potential partners.

Vietnam’s Trade Office in the Philippines is ready to support Vietnamese businesses coming to that country looking for opportunities, he promised.

Cashew, instant coffee, tea, pepper, plastic goods, garment and textile products, machinery, electrical cables, and electrical and electronic equipment could become popular in the Philippines, he said.

Trade between Vietnam and the Philippines has risen six-fold in the last decade to US$ 2.4 billion.

The latter is now Vietnam’s biggest rice importer and has many companies successfully doing business here, such as Jollibee, United Pharma, and Oishi.