A booth introducing products of Thanh Hoa at the 30th Vietnam International Trade Fair in Hanoi. (Source: //baothanhhoa.vn/)

Hanoi (VNA) – The north central province of Thanh Hoa has applied various measures to bolster trade promotion, thus expanding market for local products.

Over the years, the provincial People’s Committee has directed departments, agencies and localities to optimise the domestic market by supporting local firms and cooperatives to sell their products and expand partnership.

Since 2016, the province has held 30 trade fairs and exhibitions with the participation of thousands of producers, along with 20 trade fairs for 30 businesses to bring their products to rural and remote areas.

At the same time, the province has helped more than 200 local businesses, organisations and individuals to attend supply-demand connection conferences and trade fairs held in the locality and other cities and provinces such as Ninh Binh, Hanoi, Nghe An, Quang Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Tinh.

In the first six months of 2021, local departments, sectors and relevant agencies coordinated with each other to arrange for local companies and producers to participate in two major trade fairs – the 30th Vietnam International Trade Fair in Hanoi and the trade promotion and supply-demand connection conference for northern central localities and the capital city of Hanoi held in Ha Tinh province.

At those two events, Thanh Hoa firms organised five pavilions to display and introduce their products, which helped them signed contracts with partners to sell dozens of kinds of products.

Alongside, at conferences held to review sectors’ performance or the implementation of socio-economic programmes, the locality has introduced typical products, thus bringing them closer to consumers.

In order to support the promotion and introduction of potential and strong products of Thanh Hoa, the provincial People’s Committee has approved the formation of 1,050 chains of production and selling of safe food products, along with the opening of 404 shops for selling and showcasing safe farm produce and nine showrooms introducing products under the “one commune-one product” (OCOP) programme of Thanh Hoa.

Currently, Thanh Hoa has 236 goods products granted  protection certificates, including four products getting geographical indications, 23 products registering intellectual property rights, and 209 agro-forestry-fisheries products by local production facilities having their labels certified.

According to the provincial Department of Science and Technology, quality certificates have helped affirmed the position of local products and promote their sales in supermarket chains and trade centres of many cities and provinces nationwide.

In reality, despite the strengthened trade promotion efforts, the efficiency of the activities remains modest, while trade promotion programmes have been small in scale and irregular in frequency, without any specific promotion strategy for particular sectors and products.

Commenting on trade promotion activities, Tran Tien Dung, head of the Office for Trade and Tourism Promotion under the Centre for Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion of Thanh Hoa said that Thanh Hoa is strong in the quantity and quality of agricultural and handicraft products. The province always encourages and support local cooperatives and companies as well as producers to engage in trade fairs and exhibitions to seek markets for their products. In fact, the demand to join such events is high.

However, Dung held that there was limitation in the operation of pavilions to introduce products at trade fairs, leading to the modest efficiency.

Therefore, in order to improve the effectiveness of trade promotion activities, local departments, sectors and agencies should design more mechanisms and policies to support businesses and cooperatives to join trade fairs, especially those held outside the province, in a more effective manner, he said.

♒ He also suggested the strengthening of communications to call for more resources from the society to enhance the efficiency of local producers’ participation in trade fairs./.