Vietnam plans to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with digital transformation, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Tuesday.
‘Vietnam has 1.4 million grocery stores and 9,000 traditional markets. Wholesale and retail activities contributed 9.83 percent to GDP in 2023, highlighting the immense importance of this sector in driving the country’s economic development and job creation. Therefore, supporting the wholesale and retail sector with digital transformation is essential,’ Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Pham Duc Long, said at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City.
Tran Minh Tuan, Director of the Ministry of Information and Communications’ Department of Digital Economy and Digital, said Vietnam’s e-commerce retail market grew at 16-25 percent in 2018-2023 to rise to third in Southeast Asia behind only Malaysia and the Philippines.
Yet its proportion of e-commerce to total retail sales is only 8 percent, he said, far below the global average of 19.4 percent and especially tha
t of China (43 percent), the UK (35 percent), the Republic of Korea (28 percent), and the US (26 percent). This shows there is substantial room for growth, he said.
Ho Chi Minh City will implement a plan to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with digital transformation to create a new growth driver for them while boosting socio-economic development, the director announced.
The government has approved a programme to help retailers make digital transformation and chosen Phu Nhuan district to pilot it before rolling it out nationwide, Tuan said.
Source: Emirates News Agency