Japanese restaurant chains boom in urban Vietnam
HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Japanese investors are pouring money into
hundreds of restaurants in Vietnam as local incomes continue to rise
around the country.
Japanese restaurants began to appear in the
1990s, but the number has soared in recent years.
Chains like Tokyo Deli, Yakimono, Sushi
Rei and Gyu Shige can be seen on busy streets in Hanoi, HCM City, and in
other major cities and provinces.
Many Japanese restaurant chains have expanded
operations in the country, with more than 1,500 Japanese
restaurants.
Gyu Shige BBQ Restaurant, with 130 restaurants in
Japan, officially entered Vietnam in 2016 with its first store in HCM
City, while the chain Ootoya recently opened its second
restaurant at the Bitexco Tower in HCM City.
More than 10 years ago, Okamura
Food-Japan cooperated with Trung Son Food JSC to open the Tokyo
Deli restaurant chain in Hanoi and HCM City.
After 12 years of operation, there are now 20
branches of Tokyo Deli in the country. It targets having 50 restaurants
nationwide next year.
In addition, the Hatoyama Japanese seafood
restaurant under the Migroup Investment and Trading JSC recently opened its
second branch in Hanoi, bringing the total number to three in Vietnam.
In 2017, there were 650 Japanese restaurants in HCM
City, three times the number in 2014, according to statistics from the Japanese
Consulate General in HCM City.
Half of the Japanese restaurants in Vietnam are
owned and operated by Japanese, with the rest by Vietnamese through
franchise models.
When entering the local market, Japanese food
enterprises have a tendency to adapt to Vietnamese tastes.
Besides the restaurant sector, Japanese
investment in Vietnam in general and the number of Japanese visitors to Vietnam
have both increased, as well as accompanying services.
The potential also comes from increased
spending on food from Vietnamese.
According to Vietnam Report JSC, a market research
and business assessment company in Hanoi, Vietnam’s annual food consumption is
estimated to account for 15 percent of its GDP.
Japanese culture is known for its elegance and
sophistication and unrivaled standards of quality of both dishes and
service as well as higher prices. As a result, many of the
Japanese restaurants target mid- and high-income customers.
But, as the Vietnamese middle class
continues to grow, with a focus on healthy food, consumers are
willing to spend more for higher quality products.
To decrease the cost of ingredients, Japanese
investors are beginning to look for local partners to ensure supplies that
satisfy Japanese standards but at a much lower cost.
As of the end of last year, more than 57 billion
USD worth of Japanese capital was invested in Vietnam with nearly 4,000
projects, according to figures from the Ministry of Planning and
Investment.
Last year, Japan was Vietnam’s largest FDI investor
with a total registered capital of nearly 8 billion USD, accounting for 31 percent
of the country’s total FDI.
A recent report from the Japan External Trade
Organisation survey on investment trends among Japanese firms operating in Vietnam
in the 2018 fiscal year showed that nearly 70 percent of Japanese businesses
wanted to expand operations in the southeast Asian country.-VNS/VNA