The US has been a target market for many Vietnamese businesses. Yet the 300 million-strong market is also a demanding market in terms of quality standards, requiring firms to exert efforts to penetrate, reported the Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times).

The newspaper quoted Truong Thuy Linh, Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in Houston , as saying that the US market is diverse in its demands with strict requirements, a major obstacle for Vietnamese enterprises.

According to US statistics, Vietnam is now the 13 th largest supplier of goods to the US . The market share of Vietnamese products is predicted to expand once the Trans-Pacific Partnership is signed, given the stipulated series of tax cuts for Vietnamese firms.

At the same time, a large number of US firms are expected to increase partnerships with Vietnamese enterprises to explore each others’ markets, said Linh.

The US has been a key market for many Vietnamese products recently, including cashews and peppercorn.

According to a representative from the Vietnam Cashew Association, the sector views the US market as a priority. The sector has implemented a number of promotion activities to engage the promising market.

Peppercorn producers and exporters have exerted a number of efforts to seek technology solutions to improve quality and value, targeting high-class segments of the US market. Recently, the sector announced that it succeeded in producing high quality products that meet the US market’s demand.

Other strong Vietnamese export products to the US market include apparel, footwear, wood and wooden products and seafood. Particularly, half of garment and textile exports are bound for the US .

Statistics of the Vietnam Customs showed the US continues to be the largest consumer of Vietnam ’s garments and textiles in the first five months of this year with total revenue of 4.05 billion USD, up 10.5 percent year on year and accounting for 49.7 percent of the sector’s total exports.

At the same time, the footwear sector also earned 1.63 billion USD in the market, a rise of 30.6 percent annually, while electronics and accessories exports also enjoyed 1.09 billion USD in revenue.

Agriculturally, Vietnamese lychee and longan have been accepted into the US market since the end of 2014. It is forecast that Vietnam will ship 600 tonnes of lychee and 1,200 tonnes of longan to US every year, accounting for 17 percent and 69 percent of the market share, respectively.

According to Linh, Vietnam currently has three representative agencies in the US that are ready to support businesses in approaching the market.

Experts said that along with strict technical barriers and foot safety requirements by the US market, Vietnamese firms are also facing problems in poor competitiveness and high transport fees as well as long shipping durations when exporting goods to the market.

Statistics show that in 2014, trade between Vietnam and the US was 35 billion USD with 28.66 billion USD in Vietnamese exports, equivalent to 11.7 percent of Vietnam’s total exports.

In the first five months of this year, Vietnam shipped 12.77 billion USD worth of goods to the US.-VNA