Six products Walmart wants to find in Vietnam

U.S. retail giant Walmart is seeking partners in clothing and accessories, textile and accessories, shoes, consumer electronics, furniture, and food-consumer goods at the Vietnam International Sourcing 2023 exhibition from September 13-15.

Walmart will focus on purchasing products in these six main industries and offer advice to domestic businesses that wish to participate in the group's value chain, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) stated on its website.

In order to join Walmart's billion-dollar global value chain, Vietnamese businesses need to pay special attention to three core issues: building strategies with long-term goals, solutions for supply chain and logistics, and product design and development capabilities, the ministry added.

In addition, in a meeting with the ministry, Walmart said that the most important factors when evaluating suppliers in Vietnam are capacity, financial stability, sustainable development, and compliance with commitments about the environment.

The Walmart delegation will be led by Avineesh Gupta, executive vice president in charge of sourcing textiles, garments, and fast-moving consumer goods.

Walmart is one of many large corporations that will participate in Vietnam International Sourcing 2023, besides Aeon, Uniqlo (Japan); Amazon, AES (U.S.); Carrefour, Decathlon (France); Central Group (Thailand); and Coppel (Mexico).

American businesses are seeking more partners in Vietnam after U.S. President Biden's visit on September 10-11.

Vietnam and the U.S. agreed to raise bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy, during President Biden’s visit to Hanoi. The upgrade takes Vietnam-U.S. relations on a par with Vietnam's relationships with China, Russia, India and South Korea.

The U.S. is Vietnam's largest export market and second biggest trade partner, behind only China. The U.S. became the first market to which Vietnam's exports surpassed $100 billion in 2022.

In January-August, total retail and service revenues in Vietnam went up 10% year-on-year to VND4,044 trillion ($167.29 billion), slower than 19.2% in the same period of 2022. This was still better than negative 3.5% and 1.1% revenue growth in the same periods of 2021 and 2020, respectively, according to the General Statistics Office.

The retail sector accounted for the biggest portion of revenues at VND3,176 trillion ($131.29 billion), up 8.7% year-on-year; followed by accommodation and catering services at VND436.3 trillion ($18.04 billion), up 15.6%; tourism at VND22.4 trillion ($926 million), up 47%; and other services at VND409.7 trillion, up 12.6%.