VietNamNet Bridge – Some exporting enterprises may be undercutting the prices of Vietnamese competitors when negotiating contracts with foreign buyers, with the net effect of undermining the nation's total export value, say experts.

Increasing numbers of Vietnamese exporters complained that they had been put at disadvantage and had faced competition from other Vietnamese firms for shares of the overseas market in recent years.

The head of the May Tre La Ba Nhat Co-operative, Nguyen Thi Cuc, said weak co-operation and unhealthy competition between Vietnamese exporters were increasingly problematic issues.

She cited her co-operative's experience as an example. In the middle of 2008, her co-operative received a contract worth millions of dollars to export bamboo products to Europe.

As nearly all contract terms neared completion, she said, the foreign buyer asked her co-operative to readjust prices, citing receipt of a competing offer at a lower price from another Vietnamese firm.

Such price competition among Vietnamese businesses occured among agricultural and seafood products as well, said the Vietnamese commercial counsellor in Egypt, Dang Ngoc Quang.

Nguyen Van Thuy, deputy director of Hoa Sen Mekong Co, which specialises in tra and basa catfish exports, agreed that Viet Nam catfish exporters often competed against each other rather than against foreign rivals.

Chairman of the Viet Nam Coffee and Cacao Association Luong Van Tu also warned that undercutting competitors' prices would increase commercial risks for all exporters by prompting companies in target markets to file anti-dumping actions against Vietnamese products.

Tu suggested Vietnamese firms improve their business cultures and promote co-operation as a move to enhance competitiveness and export value.

Former Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen recommended that, rather than engaging in price wars, domestic firms target certain customer groups with demand appropriate to their advantages and capacities and then build on that character to attract greater numbers of customers in the targeted group.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu has called for enterprises and trade associations to co-operate more closely and draw up more effective plans to improve the competitiveness of the nation's exports.

Vietnamese enterprises remained weak in market research, product marketing and distribution, Tu said at a conference earlier this month.