AEON event promotes Vietnamese products in Japan

Vietnamese lychee has won preference in Japan. Photo: VNA

About 350 stores and supermarkets of retail giant AEON across Japan, along with its website, are displaying diverse products during the Vietnamese Goods Week that kicked off on June 25.

The products on display include fresh fruits like lychee and banana, food, garments-textiles, leather and footwear, household utensils, and handicrafts.

AEON imported 30 tons of lychees from Vietnam’s northern provinces of Hai Duong and Bac Giang to serve the event as the fruit has won preference in Japan.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Vu Hong Nam said this is the second year Vietnamese lychee has hit shelves in Japan.

Gaining a foothold for the fruit in a demanding market like Japan will help Vietnamese farmers change their production, processing and preservation methods, while promoting the prestige of the fruit globally, he said.

It is hard to bring Vietnamese lychee to Japan, and even harder to maintain its foothold in the market, Nam said, urging exporters to invest more in preservation equipment and technologies and farmers to observe production process.

Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in Japan Ta Duc Minh affirmed that Vietnamese lychee has satisfied stringent regulations on food quarantine and safety set by Japan.

Therefore, the fruit has been consumed well in the market despite the complex development of COVID-19, he said.

Apart from lychee, AEON has focused on promoting Vietnamese banana which Soichi Okazaki - Executive Officer, ASEAN Business of AEON - said tastes better than that imported from Ecuador, the Philippines, and Taiwan (China).

The annual Vietnamese Goods Week aims to raise AEON’s sales of Vietnamese products in Japan to 1 billion USD by 2025. Through the event, more than 100 businesses from 21 Vietnamese cities and provinces have introduced their products to Japanese consumers.

During a reception for the Vietnamese ambassador prior to the opening ceremony of the Vietnamese Goods Week at AEON Lake Town in Saitama prefecture, Okazaki said the group has worked to promote many Vietnamese products not only in Vietnam but also in other Southeast Asian nations and Japan.

AEON’s import revenue of Vietnamese goods rose from 35 billion JPY (300 million USD) in 2019 to 40.4 billion JPY last year, and would reach 50 billion JPY this year, he said.

Nam said other Vietnamese fruits like longan are also expected to enter Japan in the time ahead.

According to statistics of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, Vietnam earned 1.8 billion USD from exporting agricultural and fishery products to Japan last year, up 0.1 percent from 2019.

In the first five months of this year, the value was 740.4 million USD, a rise of 3.2 percent year-on-year.

VNA