Domestic experts have highlighted great potential and opportunities for
the export of construction materials and wooden products to the Middle
East at a conference recently held in Ho Chi Minh City.
Tran
Quang Huy, Director of the African and West and South Asian Market
Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, stressed the Middle
East is in very high need of construction materials for a number of its
underway projects, especially those in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
member countries, totally worth 915 billion USD.
Saudi Arabia
tops the region in terms of the number of construction projects, with 30
percent of the total. It now has more than 700 registered construction
projects. Those completed last year are valued at a combined 61 billion
USD. Other underway and planned projects are over 1 trillion USD.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait also spend
annually tens of billions of USD building infrastructure and civil work.
The Middle East annually purchases a large volume of wood and timber
products from abroad as its production does not meet the existing
domestic demand. The GCC countries have more than 1,000 furniture
factories, but their production primarily depends on imported materials,
Huy added.
Economic cooperation between Vietnam and Middle
Eastern countries has seen fast development over the recent past.
Two-way trade stood at only 3.3 billion USD in 2010 and nearly tripled
in 2013. Wood and timber product exports to the market fetched about 109
million USD last year.
To further boost exports to the region,
appropriate market entry strategies should be devised, with focus on
meeting standards in terms of quality and environmental protection,
experts said.
Tran Loan, Director of the Vietnam LP
Entrepreneur Institute, suggested domestic producers and distributors
need to open representative offices and showrooms in the market, so as
to enable customers to easily access products.
Vietnamese firms
have to update continuously information on business climate in Middle
Eastern countries and changes in their trade policies, in addition to
learning about habits and customs of the region and setting up links,
said Nguyen Quoc Hai, trade councillor in Saudi Arabia.
Participants also agreed Vietnamese ministries and agencies should
further enhance collaboration with their Middle Eastern counterparts,
providing domestic firms with more support to penetrate into the market.-VNA