Export to the US: The key is quality and origin

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Enterprises must ensure the rules of origin when exporting to the US. Photos: H. Diu

Core issue

As an enterprise exporting about 3,500-4,000 tons of honey to the US every year, Mr. Nguyen Viet Cuong, General Director of Dak Nguyen Hong Honey Exploiting Co., Ltd said that the export potential to this market is still very large due to high demand. Moreover, the export of honey into this market was still mainly raw materials, at low value, so the opportunity for opening new value chains, self-branding enterprises would be also very positive.

However, Mr. Cuongsaidthat the difficulty of the product might be large residues of antibiotics andpesticides,while all productsmust be tested strictly in many stages. Therefore, the CEO of Dak Nguyen Hong said that enterprises had to ensure quality from the farming stage, orienting beekeepers in order to produce the best products,avoiding fruit areas with pesticides andinsecticides. Moreover, for each batch of exports, enterprises had to spend a lot of money to test,control experiment, even bring productsin German inspection rooms. In addition, according to thedirector, a remarkable issue was that the new US Food Lawintroduced manynew regulations on food hygiene,safety and quality control.Therefore, enterprises had to update regularly, change the system operating thinking,before they managed by ISO, but now they must have FISMA certificate.

Agreeing with the above views, Mr. Nguyen Danh Lam, representative of Ha Dung Co., Ltd., said that to export products tothe US market, the core issue must be product quality. According to Mr. Lam, enterprises also had to be very persistentbecause the business culture in the US was often associated with permanent partners,it was rare to changesuppliers unless there was a price surge.Therefore, the initial connection ofenterprises would be more difficult, but if successful, they could cooperate for decades.

Prestige of the business community

Commenting on recentVietnam-US trade, Ms. Amanda Rasmussen, President of Amcham in Ho Chi Minh City, ITL Vietnam's Operating Director saidthat Vietnam's exports to the US increased sharply but it was worth discussing how much were actually from Vietnamese enterprises andhow muchwere export resultsimpacted by tensions between the US and China.However, this also contains risks when acceleratingin shifting investment from China to Vietnam in many areas.Therefore, Ms. Rasmussenrecommended thatVietnamese enterprises should pay attention tocomplywith specific US import and export regulations.

In fact, the authorities have made many recommendations to Vietnamese enterprises on the issue of goods origin and origin of raw materials in exported products, especially export goodstothe US. Because if violating, not only will enterprises lose business cooperation opportunities but also affect the overall reputation of the Vietnamese business community.It may even lead to the US imposition of trade remedies for somegoods.Therefore, ensuring the origin of goods must be animmediate concern after quality.

In this regard, Mr. Nguyen Viet Cuong said that the trade agreement between China and ASEAN had set a 0% tax on importing honey from China to Vietnam, but currently, honey products from China to Vietnam were imported officially. However, in order to avoid mixing Chinese honey into products, enterprises had to manage the material area strictly in a chain.Moreover,due to specific factors, exported honey productswould be tested for pollento know the origin of products.

According to Mr. Nguyen Danh Lam, in order to meet US standards, the packaging of enterprises always ensures itmeets the rules of origin by ensuring from the stage of raw materials, in which, the raw materials are takencompletelyfrom domestic production factories and enterprises invest infacilities to produce raw materials by themselves.

It can be seen that Vietnamese enterprises are gradually changing, having their own plans and strategies to meet the regulations for export activities. However, in addition to the enterprises being prepared, the authorities also need to take measures such as strengthening the provision of information,supporting import and export activities and supporting legislation.