AEON pledges to absorb additional Vietnamese exports

This pledge was reiterated during a workshop aimed at connecting Vietnamese firms with the AEON supply chain held in Ho Chi Minh City on April 23.

Experts noted that Japan’s large import demand is a good opportunity for Vietnamese businesses to expand their market share in the country and access additional markets through the global distribution network of AEON.

Japan is one of Vietnam’s largest trade partners and makes up a large proportion of the ASEAN member country’s export turnover through key products such as garments and textiles, and aquatic products.

However, up to 70 per cent of Vietnamese goods sold on the AEON network are distributed via foreign-invested firms.

Nguyen Thao Hien from the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Japan has strict requirements relating to the quality of products. Therefore, domestic businesses must improve their production capacity to create more competitive products. 

Japan is the world’s third biggest economy and has a high import demand, particularly in garment-textiles, footwear, seafood, farm produce, plastic products, and wood.

These are the sectors which Vietnam enjoys many advantages in, local media quoted comments by Yuichiro Shiotani, general director of AEON Topvalu Vietnam as saying.

He mentioned that AEON, as a leading retail group in Japan, has prioritized the import of more made-in-Vietnam wares, particularly apparel products, food, household, and healthcare products, for distribution to its network across the globe.

AEON is scheduled to organize the “Vietnamese Goods Week” at its supermarkets throughout Japan in June, with a view of increasing the presence of Vietnamese products on the AEON network.