WORDS ON THE STREET 70th anniversary of Hanoi's Liberation Day Vietnam - Asia 2023 Smart City Summit Hanoi celebrates 15 years of administrative boundary adjustment 12th Vietnam-France decentrialized cooperation conference 31st Sea Games - Vietnam 2021 Covid-19 Pandemic
Oct 18, 2017 / 10:56

When giant foreign corporations teach Vietnamese enterprise the lesson of competition

The recent experience of Idemitsu, Grab and Uber leave Vietnamese enterprises a big lesson of fair competition.

In a market economy, fair competition is always a strong motivation for innovation, efficiency, labor productivity and growth.
If there is no competition for cars, people will only know the black cars produced by Ford. In facts, digital cameras have replaced film cameras, film washers, photo printers and Kodak film studios have accepted bankruptcy. Online retail, home-based delivery is replacing traditional retail stores and thousands of traditional retail stores in the United States and Europe have also closed. Amazon has been overshadowing the world's largest retailer, Walmart, for food, vegetables and fruits. From these examples, it can be seen that competition is a powerful driving force for science-technology, innovation and development process with better benefits to society.
Equal competition is the basic principle, foundation of a market economy and achievement of human civilization for creating advantages compared to central planning and bureaucracy regime.
In Vietnam, the Competition Law was promulgated in 2004, defining the basic principles of competition and controlling the market. Unfortunately, it has only limited effect and is now being submitted to the National Assembly for further correcting and supplementing. Resolution V of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam XII (dated June 3, 2017) also confirmed: "Economic components must be subjected to equality, cooperation, competition and development in accordance with the law".
Unfortunately, in practice there are still many monopoly phenomena that are not controlled. Besides, many acts of competition restraint and unfair competition is implemented to prevent other enterprises from operating.
In the beginning of September 2017, the Hanoi Taxi Association attracted the public attention with the proposal: "urgently stop the pilot of Uber and Grab" because " It is causing more insecurity for society." Then, many traditional taxis in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have worn banners asking "Uber and Grab must comply with Vietnamese law". It is a very counterproductive action for those firms.
Recently, Petrolimex hung the slogan " Vietnamese people should prioritize using made-in-Vietnam goods " after the launch of a Japanese petrol retailer named Idemitsu from October 5. Petrolimex later stated that the slogan was not the same as that of the taxi companies on Uber and Grab.
It can be seen that Vietnamese enterprises have reacted unfriendly to the new competitors. Instead of analyzing "Strength - weakness - opportunities - challenges" to find solutions, accept competition, improve and enhance service quality, Vietnamese enterprises choose to reject these competitors. This action is totally inconsistent with the Competition Law in 2004 which is in force and does not fully comply with the Resolution V of the Central Committee.
The fact that Vietnamese people expect the appearance of Japan's gas station Idemitsu is not only because the way its owner welcoming customers, but because it is committed to sell accurately to 0.01 liters and customer care service ... So rather than having the slogan of accidentally or intentionally emphasizing "foreign elements", Vietnamese enterprises should calmly analyze what can be learned from competitors and improve their quality service to attract customers.
After nearly two years of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) commitments, many of our products have been inferior to those of Thailand. Our country has trade deficit of $ 3.6 billion from Thailand in the first 9 months in 2017. The right slogan " Vietnamese people should prioritize using made-in-Vietnam goods " cannot substitute for improving the competitiveness to maintain the domestic market.