Hanoi (VNA)♛ - The 2018 VietnamTrademark Forum in Hanoi on April 20 sought to help Vietnamese firms buildtrademarks, looking to achieve sustainable exports in the context of intensiveglobal integration.

The forum was held on the threshold of FreeTrade Agreements setting to take effect in the near future, and given the factthat brand competitiveness has been going more fiercely. “A lot of Vietnamese goods have been exported to foreign markets but underforeign importers’ brands, not Vietnamese,” said Nguyen Quoc Thinh – lecturerof Trademark Management at the University of Commerce. It means that Vietnamese firms face barriersin taking control over the quality and processing of for-export products thatleads to the situation in which foreign importers still overlook products fromVietnam, Thinh clarified. Given that, he proposed Vietnamese firmsshould shake their hands in developing brands for their commodities. To that end, in parallel with the supportfrom the Government and relevant ministries, enterprises themselves shouldraise their sense of pro-activeness in developing brands, said Luong Ngoc Nhan,Chief of Economic and Trade Promotion Department of the Vietnam Association ofSmall and Medium Enterprises. “Building brands is a hard work for smalland medium-sized enterprises because they face a number of difficulties interms of capital, skill, and access to information sources,” he said. “That enterprises overlook the importance ofbuilding brands is another challenge,” added Nhan. Building trademark is a right way to protectproducts’ values as well as the image and prestige of enterprises, delegatesagreed. “It’s important that thebuyers know who you are and why you are diferent and better,” said Tony Pigott,a brand building expert from Canada. “In a competitive market, consumer market for example, it’seven more critical that people trust what they buy and know who it is.”  “I think in Vietnam you have so much quality and variety but the world doesn’t know you yet. As the world doesn’t know you, you’re not sure whether it’s going to work,” the expert said,suggesting that it’s time for Vietnam to build brands to build trust. The forum forms part of the 2018 VietnamTrademark Week organised in Hanoi, Da Nang city, and Ho Chi Minh City andlasting from April 16-24. This year’s event focuses on improvingcompetitiveness capacity to help enterprises develop markets, towards buildingbrands for varieties of commodities. The forum drew the participation of a largenumber of representatives from ministries and sector, scholars, and businesseswhich have paid much interest in developing brands to boost exports.-VNA