A Japanese restaurant in downtown HCM City’s District 1 is owned and managed by Vietnamese. (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Japanese investors are pouring money intohundreds of restaurants in Vietnam as local incomes continue to risearound the country.  

Japanese restaurants began to appear in the1990s, but the number has soared in recent years.

Chains like Tokyo Deli, Yakimono, SushiRei and Gyu Shige can be seen on busy streets in Hanoi, HCM City, and inother major cities and provinces. 

Many Japanese restaurant chains have expandedoperations in the country, with more than 1,500 Japaneserestaurants. 

Gyu Shige BBQ Restaurant, with 130 restaurants inJapan, officially entered Vietnam in 2016 with its first store in HCMCity, while the chain Ootoya recently  opened its secondrestaurant at the Bitexco Tower in HCM City. 

More than 10 years ago, OkamuraFood-Japan cooperated with Trung Son Food JSC to open the TokyoDeli restaurant chain in Hanoi and HCM City. 

After 12 years of operation, there are now 20branches of Tokyo Deli in the country. It targets having 50 restaurantsnationwide next year.

In addition, the Hatoyama Japanese seafoodrestaurant under the Migroup Investment and Trading JSC recently opened itssecond branch in Hanoi, bringing the total number to three in Vietnam.

In 2017, there were 650 Japanese restaurants in HCMCity, three times the number in 2014, according to statistics from the JapaneseConsulate General in HCM City.

Half of the Japanese restaurants in Vietnam areowned and operated by Japanese, with the rest by Vietnamese throughfranchise models.

When entering the local market, Japanese foodenterprises have a tendency to adapt to Vietnamese tastes.

Besides the restaurant sector, Japaneseinvestment in Vietnam in general and the number of Japanese visitors to Vietnamhave both increased, as well as accompanying services. 

The potential also comes from increasedspending on food from Vietnamese. 

According to Vietnam Report JSC, a market researchand business assessment company in Hanoi, Vietnam’s annual food consumption isestimated to account for 15 percent of its GDP. 

Japanese culture is known for its elegance andsophistication and unrivaled standards of quality of both dishes andservice as well as higher prices. As a result, many of theJapanese restaurants target mid- and high-income customers. 

But, as the Vietnamese middle classcontinues to grow, with a focus on healthy food, consumers arewilling to spend more for higher quality products.

To 🀅decrease the cost of ingredients, Japaneseinvestors are beginning to look for local partners to ensure supplies thatsatisfy Japanese standards but at a much lower cost.

As of the end of last year, more than 57 billionUSD worth of Japanese capital was invested in Vietnam with nearly 4,000projects, according to figures from the Ministry of Planning andInvestment.

Last year, Japan was Vietnam’s largest FDI investorwith a total registered capital of nearly 8 billion USD, accounting for 31 percentof the country’s total FDI.

A recent report from the Japan External TradeOrganisation survey on investment trends among Japanese firms operating in Vietnamin the 2018 fiscal year showed that nearly 70 percent of Japanese businesseswanted to exꦐ🍃pand operations in the southeast Asian country.-VNS/VNA