Vietnam fosters cross-border e-commerce in ASEAN

The vigorous growth of e-commerce in recent years has created a golden opportunity for businesses to enter the export market more conveniently, heard a workshop on supporting businesses to participate in cross-border e-commerce in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Ho Chi Minh City on June 21.

Organised by the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the event formed part of the ASEAN Online Sale 2023, aiming to bolster e-commerce in the region while accelerating the implementation of ASEAN Free Trade Agreements.

Le Hoang Anh, Director of the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency, revealed that in the 2022 reports of Google, Temasek and Brain & Company focusing on six countries namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, 20 million people used online platforms for the first time in 2022, raising the total number of internet users in the region to 460 million.

According to Statista’s report, ASEAN is forecast to achieve a dual annual growth rate of 11.43% in the next five years, equivalent to developed countries in the world such as the US, China and Canada.

Revenue from e-commerce is expected to reach 113.9 billion USD by the end of 2023 and the figure is projected to hit 175 billion USD by 2027.

Oanh said that the emergence of e-commerce platforms has also played a vital part in the overall development of e-commerce in the ASEAN region. Shopee, a mobile-centric marketplace where users can browse, shop and sell products, is evaluated as the most outstanding platform, accounting for 44% of the region’s total revenue. With this growth, the digital economy in ASEAN is on track to grow to 1 billion USD by 2030.

Squall Wang, Managing Director of UPS in Vietnam, said that to enter to the e-commerce market, enterprises need to reinvent or cement their supply chains, digitalise processes more effectively and have a better understanding about customs regulations when they bring their products to the world. Small- and medium-sized enterprises should not worry about investing in sophisticated technologies as they can take advantages of free services provided by supporting units.

In Vietnam, cross-border e-commerce has been assessed to have great potential and it is in line with policies on the development of the digital economy set forth by the government, and at the same time, this will be an effective supplementary channel for traditional international trade to bring into play advantages of technology, helping Vietnamese products reach more to customers worldwide.