Speaking at the 9th Forum on Vietnam National Branding in Hanoi on March 11, Hai, who is permanent Vice President of the National Brand Council, said that Vietnam has signed a number of free trade agreements, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which means that opportunities are coupled with challenges. If there are no specific measures to build and promote the national brand, enterprises, over 90% of which are small and medium-sized, cannot take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the trade agreements, he affirmed. Samir Dixit, Managing Director of Brand Finance Asia-Pacific, stated that Vietnam national branding was assessed at US$140 billion in 2015, down 19% from the US$172 billion of 2014. 

According to him, the value of Vietnam’s national brand name is four times lower than Indonesia’s and three times lower than Singapore’s and Malaysia’s. 

These figures show the weakness of the Vietnam brand name. Notable, the country is still weak in product quality and life cycle, and in enterprises’ social responsibilities. 

Although Vietnam holds great potential and advantages in tourism development, the country is defeated by the Philippines whose national brand ranks first in ASEAN in terms of value, he added. 

Sharing the viewpoint, Thierry Noyelle, senior advisor to a technical cooperation programme between the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said that a survey of 63 websites from Vietnamese companies participating in the National Branding Programme showed their contents were poor and only 10 sites had the National Brand emblem –Vietnam Value logo – on their websites. 

Therefore, he asked businesses to immediately foster brand promotion. Along with big companies, the National Branding Programme should be expanded to small- and medium-sized enterprises to help them intensify exports.