The answers to these questions are as individual as is the setup of your business. However, as Asia and Vietnam in particular are the focus of this article, our answers will be evidently regionally biased. Nonetheless, we will also underline specific peculiarities of importing Vietnamese goods.

The European Union is the second largest export market for Vietnam, i.e. exports to the EU account for about 19 % of Vietnam’s total exports in 2015. In this respect, the 5 most common Vietnamese imports into EU were telephone sets & components (9.76 %), footwear (4.6 %), textiles & garments (3.42 %), electronics-computers accessories (2.78 %) and coffee (1.15 %). Hence, Vietnam’s export commodities are increasingly replaced by more advanced technical equipment. That shift in the Vietnamese manufacturing sector has been supported by a continuous inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) at 1.545 bn USD with regard to the EU, i.e. the third largest FDI inflow only behind ASEAN and Korea in 2015. These levels of investments, for example by Samsung, to build production capacities and manufacturing efficiency have contributed to its changing export structure. Through the exchange of technical know-how and the implementation of advanced manufacturing controls and quality-assurance mechanisms, Vietnam has been able to maintain international standards at relatively moderate labour costs in order to make it a viable, stable and cost-reductive source of procurement for various sectors.

The risks are diminishing since the EU and Vietnam have decided to introduce a EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that will likely be in force by 2018. That means a whole new set of import opportunities will arise for EU companies or Vietnamese companies targeting their exports into the European Union, especially lower barriers of trade such as tariffs and improved legal compliance will make Vietnamese imports a reliable source of supply.

The question for SMEs that are considering to export goods, services and products into the EU or import them from the EU then becomes: How can we access relevant data and how do we start an international trade operation in the European Union?

Therefore, the European Commission, especially the Enterprise Europe Network provides an official platform to connect SMEs and to find an international trade, distribution and business partners in the European Union or abroad. Furthermore, they provide a market access database on tariffs, procedures and formalities, statistics, trade barriers, rules or origin and other useful resources for SMEs to export into the EU or import from the EU.

A collection of databases and tools, provided by the European Commission, such as the KETs Deployment and Visualization Tool to analyse multi-annual industrial trends, the European Small Business Portal with plenty of useful knowledge or the Your Europe practical guide on how to do business in Europe allow SMEs access to free information and valuable business intelligence to grow their business internationally.

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This trade blog provides a series of practical and brief reports or articles on tools, products, information, methods, technology and business, trade or e-commerce to engage and inform SMEs for sustainable growth. Moreover, it is a platform for consumers, clients, vendors, SMEs, experts, journalists, authors, academics, intellectuals and other participants to contribute their knowledge, opinion and expertise to help SMEs be part of a global economy.

Free trade does not only allow the international community to grow economically, but it strengthens the community of values beyond the boundaries of their economic freedom. It’s because we care about trade.