Dak Lak: Conference on trade promotion and import-export development in the Central Highlands

On April 26, in Buon Ma Thuot city, the Ministry of Industry and Trade coordinated with the People’s Committee of Dak Lak province to organize a conference on trade promotion and import-export development in the Central Highlands region.

Attending the conference were more than 200 delegates who were leaders of the People’s Committees of the 5 Central Highlands provinces, industry associations, agencies, domestic and foreign business support organizations, enterprises, and cooperatives.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Director of the Department of Trade Promotion (Ministry of Industry and Trade) Vu Ba Phu said that the conference is an important regional trade promotion activity to strengthen trade promotion and linkages. production, connecting supply and demand, promoting the image and brand of industries and products in the Central Highlands.

Through the conference, we aim to exchange and remove difficulties and obstacles in regional connectivity, economic development, import and export of the Central Highlands, contributing to bringing the Central Highlands out of its “low-lying” position in the future. develop trade, gradually narrow the gap in income and level of trade development of the region compared to the national average in the coming time.

The Central Highlands has become an area producing a number of key agricultural products on a large scale, accounting for a high proportion, especially industrial crops and fruit trees.

Some of Vietnam’s export products are ranked first and second in the region as well as the world, among which the Central Highlands has contributed many products such as coffee, pepper, passion fruit, cashew, macadamia, and rubber.

The growing area of ​​precious medicinal herbs such as Ngoc Linh ginseng, string ginseng, red lingzhi mushroom, polyscias fruticosa, polyscias fruticosa, dong quai, rose hips… in the Central Highlands is also growing rapidly to form concentrated medicinal areas. central.

However, the export turnover of the Central Highlands region is still very modest. In 2 years (2022 and 2023), the total import-export turnover of the whole region will reach about 4.6 billion USD, accounting for less than 1% of the total import-export turnover of the country.

The region’s export structure mainly focuses on some groups of fruit trees, some industrial crops, coffee, spices, medicinal plants, and resource exploitation.

Also according to Mr. Vu Ba Phu, although the Central Highlands meets all the conditions for development, it currently faces many “bottlenecks” in mechanisms, policies, science and technology, lack of high-quality human resources, and logistics infrastructure. and facilities are weak. In addition, the scale of production and processing of agricultural products in the region is still small, and deep processing centers are lacking and weak, leading to export products or raw materials for export that are still raw, bringing no value. high for people and businesses.

In particular, intra-regional linkages are showing many weaknesses, laxity, and lack of synchronous investment, leading to a lack of intra-regional supply chains. These limitations create many barriers to trade promotion activities in the domestic market and the development of import and export of goods and services from the region to the world.

At the conference, delegates focused on discussing issues such as the current situation and solutions to promote linkages and consumption of agricultural products associated with traceability; linking the Central Highlands region in trade promotion and export activities of coffee and cocoa; Some difficulties and obstacles exist in export; develop export of products from industrial crops; results of some trade promotion activities on social networking platforms and e-commerce platforms..

According to delegates, there needs to be a change in thinking, awareness, and approach in exploiting the region’s specific advantages, and finding truly effective regional integration measures to help the Central Highlands region be able to fully promote the region’s potential and strengths, turning potential into kinetic energy, great potential and resources; At the same time, it is necessary to have solutions to promote science, technology, chain links in production to increase product value, and regional links in trade promotion and import-export activities on a professional scale.

According to Standing Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Dak Lak province Nguyen Tuan Ha, the province has strengths in agricultural production of industrial crop products such as coffee, rubber, pepper, cashew and honey bees.

Exporting agricultural products has always been the strength of Dak Lak province in recent years and has achieved outstanding achievements.

The province’s goods have been exported to more than 70 countries and territories around the world; including, penetrating many notoriously difficult markets such as Japan, the US, and the EU; The province’s annual export turnover reaches more than 1.5 billion USD.

Through the conference, Dak Lak province hopes to join with other provinces in the region to connect the region’s production value chain with the consumption needs of provinces, cities, regions and regions across the country and to participate in the export day. deeper into the global value chain.

The provinces work together to improve the effectiveness of trade promotion, develop import and export, and support regional products and services to find appropriate market directions in the context of the evolving world economic situation. complicated.

On the sidelines of the conference, activities to display, introduce and promote products of goods and service suppliers inside and outside the Central Highlands region with export businesses took place.

In addition, the Department of Trade Promotion coordinates with a number of Trade Departments, Trade Branches, and Vietnam Trade Promotion Offices abroad to organize online trade connections between manufacturing and trading enterprises. vegetables, tubers, fruits, coffee, processed foods… inside and outside the Central Highlands with nearly 30 importers from important export markets such as the Philippines, China, and the United States./.