Hanoi (VNA) – The size of Vietnamese e-commerce market is likely tohit 13 billion USD this year thanks to a large percentage of young residentsand internet subscribers, according to insiders.

E-commerce enjoys strong growth

Although the local e-commerce market witnessed several giants like VinGroup andLotte pull the plug on their e-commerce platforms Adayroi and Lotte.vn in 2019,it remains attractive.

According to the report e-Conomy SEA 2019 announced by Google and Temasek,Vietnam’s e-commerce market is currently valued at 5 billion USD, with anexplosive growth of 81 percent.

Notably, e-commerce traffic growth in Vietnam ranks second in Southeast Asia,just behind Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)’sE-commerce White Book 2019 showed that the nation’s e-commerce market wasgrowing at its fastest pace in the recent three years.

E-commerce is playing an increasingly important role in the economy as revenuefrom the e-commerce sector accounted for 4.2 percent of the total retail sales,up 0.6 percent from the previous year.

Head of the MoIT’s E-commerce and Digital Economy Department Dang Hoang Haisaid that Vietnam is among the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the worldwith annual growth rate of 35 percent, which is 2.5 times higher than thatrecorded in Japan.

Last year, the MoIT successfully organised the OnlineFriday event to promote the development of e-commerce and digital economy inVietnam. The programme attracted more than 11.9 million respondents and 1.6million people scanning QR codes.

A study by the Institute for Global Leadership under the US-based TuftsUniversity in 2018 showed that Vietnam ranked 48th out of 60countries globally in terms of switching to a digital economy. Therefore, thecountry’s e-commerce sector has huge potential to further develop in thefuture.

However, several experts believed that there are many shortcomings of thee-commerce sector, including poor infrastructure, long delivery time,complicated customs procedures, high costs, and asynchronous order retrievalservices, among others.

The MoIT’s survey revealed that 40 percent of online shoppers were notsatisfied with e-commerce platform delivery services. Besides, the platforms’management policies have not kept up with the development of new businessmodels, particularly those based on digital technologies.

Furthermore, Hai said current legal frameworks fail to catch up with the developmentof technologies. Meanwhile, online business models are flourishing andmanagement agencies have found it hard to manage their operations.

He described weak capacity of the management staff as a factor that hamper thedevelopment of the e-commerce sector.

Measures to boost e-commerce development

In a bid to promote trade via e-commerce platform, the MoIT has teamed upwith Amazon Global Selling, giving Vietnamese sellers opportunities to shiptheir products abroad as well as access directly 300 million buyer accounts ofAmazon’s international markets.

The ministry will work to complete institutions and pen comprehensive measuresto build a sound eco-system for e-commerce and digital economy as well assupport local firms to apply advanced technologies of the Fourth IndustrialRevolution.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh said that the ministry willpromote the responsibility of e-commerce platform owners in the removal of fakeproducts and those violating intellectual property rights in 2020.

It will submit to the Government a master plan on e-commerce development during2021-2025, and encourage local enterprises to develop state-of-the-arttechnologies to improve their competitive edge.

Measures to manage, supervise and protect e-commerce consumers will be carriedout comprehensively, Anh stressed, adding e-commerce infrastructure will bedeveloped including national e-commerce payment system and payment centre.

In addition, the ministry will work to connect trainingfacilities and enterprises to ensure sufficient supply of quality humanresources for the e-commerce sector./.