Hanoi (VNA) – Economic experts said Vietnamese enterprises need to further promote the country’s advantages and strengths such as export of farm products, textiles and footwear in the coming time, aiming to ♎fully integrate into global economy.

Cao Si Kiem, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), noted that SMEs have begun perceiving increasing influence of competitiveness brought from international integration. To cope with challenges from the process, SMEs should build suitable strategies, with focus on promoting production and business, improving products’ quality, building trademark and prestige, designing customer care services and enhancing trade promotion in and outside the country. Sharing Kiem’s opinion, Vice Director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Industry and Trade Tran Vinh Nhung stressed the need for enterprises to immediately take more actions, affirming that those will help improve their business results. He said firms should be active in seeking new markets, and taking advantage of the State’s policies on credit, land, tariff and training, in order to boost their development. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is scheduled to become effective in two years. The ASEAN Economic Community was officially established at the end of 2015, and negotiations of the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement (FTA) have basically completed. A range of new-generation FTAs is forecast to have a significant impact on the Vietnamese economy as a whole. Vice Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) Vo Tri Thanh took note of domestic companies’ confidence in their comparative advantages, which will help them overcome difficulties and gain footholds internationally.-VNA