Comrade Phan Thi Thang, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade and Comrade Hoang Quoc Khanh, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee chaired the conference.

Attending the conference were comrade Hoang Giang, Deputy Secretary of Lao Cai Provincial Party Committee; more than 300 delegates including leaders of People's Committees of localities in the Northern Midlands and Mountains region, leaders of relevant units under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnamese trade offices abroad, industry associations and representatives of foreign business support agencies and organizations, manufacturing, import-export, trade, logistics service enterprises, etc.

Many challenges for trade promotion and import-export activities

According to the assessment at the conference, most of the enterprises in the region are small and medium enterprises, with limited production capacity, technological level, and competitiveness. Coordination of trade promotion and investment promotion activities has not been carried out regularly. Export value is still low, export products are not rich, diverse and competitive, export products are mainly raw and processed products. Most of the export products have not yet built a solid brand.

In addition, the connection between enterprises and producers still has many difficulties and shortcomings, and has not achieved harmony of interests. Researching and grasping market information, requirements, and conditions in the production process is limited.

The work of building, managing and implementing planning for commodity production areas, especially planning for developing export products in line with market demand, still has many limitations. The implementation of digital transformation in some contents in trade promotion and e-commerce activities is still difficult; many businesses in the region are not really interested in digital transformation in trade promotion activities.

Comrade Nguyen Thi Mai Linh, Import-Export Department said: Although the region has favorable conditions for developing border trade, and is interested in traffic infrastructure and border gates, the import-export results of the whole region in recent years have not met expectations.

Comrade Vu Ba Phu, Director of the Trade Promotion Department, assessed: Many trade support organizations in the region are lacking both human resources and finance for trade promotion activities. Trade promotion activities often focus on maintaining, searching and expanding markets to sell existing goods in the region, without promoting product development activities to be able to sell products that the market demands. In addition, the region's export promotion activities mainly consist of situational activities, without a long-term strategy, and have not focused on participating in trade fairs and exhibitions, and foreign market survey delegations due to lack of funding.

According to Mr. Doan Thanh Son, Vice Chairman of Lang Son Provincial People's Committee, the mechanisms, policies and incentives for investment in border economic zones and border gate areas are not specific and outstanding, not really attractive to investors, so they have not created a breakthrough in goods production and promoted import-export activities.

Need to promote regional connectivity

Discussing at the conference, delegates agreed that, in order to develop the region's economy, trade promotion programs need to be paid attention to and organized more, on a large scale, with high regional connectivity to bring benefits, opportunities and reliable information sources to organizations and enterprises. These activities also contribute to creating conditions for developing production and business activities of enterprises, effectively supporting the promotion and introduction to improve product quality, especially products with regional advantages to increase access to export markets.

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Mr. Nguyen Khanh Toan, in charge of government relations, Tiktok Vietnam Company.

Comrade Ngo Hanh Phuc, Vice Chairman of Yen Bai Provincial People's Committee, said that it is necessary to promote the development of clusters of agricultural and food processing enterprises in the Northern Midlands and Mountains region, closely linked with large-scale, concentrated raw material areas. Prioritize the development of food processing in the provinces of Son La and Phu Tho; agricultural processing in the provinces of Tuyen Quang, Yen Bai, Phu Tho... Strengthen regional linkages, research and build mechanisms for coordination, cooperation, and information exchange between localities in the region in developing clusters of agricultural and food processing enterprises in the Northern Midlands and Mountains region. The focus is on coordinating activities to develop raw material areas and attract investment in processing.

Speaking at the conference, Mr. Hoang Quoc Khanh, Standing Vice Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee emphasized: With the goal of building Lao Cai Border Gate Economic Zone, a modern logistics center, a true center for connecting trade, a transit area for import and export goods, contributing to promoting import and export activities of the whole region and the whole country, Lao Cai province will synchronously implement many solutions.

One of the priorities is to invest in developing a synchronous and modern logistics infrastructure, first of all, prioritizing the construction of infrastructure connecting the transport network towards multimodal transport to effectively exploit the transport infrastructure system, attracting the development of processing and manufacturing industries associated with import and export. Accelerating the formation of logistics centers for agricultural products to support businesses in effectively building agricultural supply chains associated with logistics services to the international market.

Concluding the conference, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Phan Thi Thang suggested that localities in the region calculate and link together to unify and accompany the development of key products for each product group of the region. From there, determine appropriate supply chain and value chain models to exploit the best product value. At the same time, closely coordinate with agencies of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and related ministries and branches to promote and promote key exports for each stage and each target market area. Build the best suitable linkage model, then each link in these chains will benefit, thereby gradually balancing intra-regional economic development.

Enterprises in the region need to promote cooperation, promptly update information about foreign markets to grasp consumer tastes in each market, adjust products to suit each market, and improve product competitiveness.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade, as a multi-sectoral economic management agency, performs the function of state management of trade, industry, regulating the circulation of goods and import and export, always accompanies and closely coordinates with the functional agencies of the localities in the Northern Midlands and Mountains, supports enterprises in the region to develop import and export markets, promote the consumption of products with the region's strengths in domestic and foreign markets, takes advantage of opportunities to promote the brands and trademarks of the region's key products, contributing to promoting the region's trade to develop more dynamically, thereby making an important contribution to the country's socio-economic development.