HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Vietnamese enterprises,especially small- and medium-sized ones, should develop their brands toincrease their competitiveness amid the process of integration, a seminarheard in Ho Chi Minh City on October 31.

Le Ngoc Lam, deputy director of the Department ofIntellectual Properties, said: “Brand is for long recognised as an intangibleasset of enterprises, plays an important role in enterprise development and isa decisive factor in the success of enterprises.”

Economist Le Dang Doanh said in the context of integration,enterprises’ brands and products were representative images of their countries.For instance, Boeing and Microsoft are representative images of the US’stechnological achievements, he said.

“A strong and competitive economy would have many largebusinesses with strong international brands.”

Brand development is not a strength of Vietnamese firms, andonly large corporations like Vinamilk, Vingroup and Viettel have done it, hesaid.

Vietnam is among the largest exporters of farm produce andseafood, but not many foreign consumers know they are using products from thecountry, he said.

That is because these products are exported without brandnames on the packaging, he said.

Household businesses still account for 32 percent of thecountry’s GDP. Businesses in this sector have not registered their brands whiletheir competitive capacity in the international market is very low, he said.  

He noted that when Ben Tre Candy exported to China, a Chinesecompany had already registered the Ben Tre Candy brand.

In many cases even large Vietnamese players like Trung NguyenCoffee and Vinamit had not registered their brands abroad and were appropriatedin some foreign markets, costing them much time and money to retrieve them, hesaid.

As Vietnam integrates deeper into the regional and globaleconomies, its enterprises must not only compete with each other but also withcompanies from all over the world, but without good brand names, enterpriseswould find it hard to compete, said Pham Le Cuong, CEO of the Vietnam Certification Centre.

Ensuring consistent quality is a key factor in having goodand sustainable brand names, he said.

According to delegates, many enterprises do not have properawareness and understanding of the role of brand names in their development.

Some think brand building is just for big enterprises and notnecessary for SMEs, they said.

Some care about brand building but assume it is done bymerely to pouring money into advertising to make customers know about them,they said.

Lam said: “To build, protect and develop brands,companies must invest scientifically and methodically in all stages in buildingstandardised production processes, market development, communication, andmarketing to promote products and brands so that consumers knows about andrecognise their brands.”

At the seminar, titled “Buildingenterprises’ brands and economic development during the time ofintegration,” many enterprises shared their experience in building brands.

The event was organised by the Research Centre for DevelopingVietnamese Brands, Thuong hieu Viet magazine and the Department ofIntellectual Properties.-VNA