Hanoi (VNA) - Local firms need to pay due attention to their brand, including brandbuilding, brand valuation and brand governance, said an official.

Dang Quyet Tien, deputy head of the Ministry of Finance (MoF)’s EnterpriseFinance Department made the statement at a conference held in Hanoi on July 4.

“Internationally, brand is considered the core value of the business, with somebrands’ value accounting for 70 percent of the total value of business assets.But in Vietnam, brand matters have not received the due consideration theydeserve from local companies,” Tien said.

In fact, some foreign organisations recognised the value of several Vietnamesecompanies’ intangible assets, Tien said, adding that Vietnam has quite a lot ofbrands appearing in various prestigious rankings in the world.

As announced by Brand Finance, an UK-based brand consultation and valuationcompany, Vietinbank was recognised as one of the Top 100 Largest Banks in ASEANand the only Vietnamese bank included in the 2016 list of top 400 most valuablebanking brands in the world, with the brand value amounting to 249 million USD,Tien said.

Also according to Brand Finance, the Viettel brand last year was valued at 2.6billion USD. The Vinaphone brand was valued at 1.04 billion USD and Mobifone at391 million USD.

“Some enterprises even spent a large amount of money to build their own brands,but were confused when determining the value of the brands, which areintangible but precious assets for businesses,” Tien said.

Vietnamese enterprises’ brands are facing many challenges such as theinfringement of intellectual property (IP), Le Ngoc Lam, Deputy Director of theNational Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam of the Ministry of Scienceand Technology said at the conference.

The Vietnam National Tobacco Corporation (Vinataba),coffee producer Trung Nguyen Group, Phu Quoc fish sauce and Ben Trecoconut candy are particular examples of Vietnamese firms being victims of IPinfringement when they are circulating their products in the global market, Lamsaid.

Also having hired professional consultants in value branding, Tien said someState-owned enterprises when conducting equitisation processes have beenprovided with different values for their brands, causing big losses to theState budget.

Tien added that there are also still some limitations and overlaps in thecontent of legal documents stipulating the brand valuation methods.

Samir Dixit, Managing Director of Brand Finance Asia Pacific said brand equity isan intangible asset because the value of the brand is not a physical asset andis instead determined by consumer perception.

When building and developing a brand, firms need to focus strongly on BrandStrength indices (BSI) and Governance Strength indices (GSI), which are the twoessential indicators measuring the efficiency of brand valuation, Dixit said.

The workshop was co-organised by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Scienceand Technology and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.-VNA