Walmart positions Vietnam as a strategic supply source

Information from the Ministry of Industry and Trade stated that, within the framework of the working program in the United States, accompanying the Prime Minister to attend the 2023 APEC Summit Week in San Francisco, on the afternoon of November 14, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien received Ms. Andrea Allbright, Executive Vice President, in charge of the purchasing department of Walmart Group.

The two sides discussed cooperation in developing Walmart's supply chain in Vietnam, as well as measures to support Vietnamese suppliers participating in Walmart Group's global value chain.

According to Ms. Andrea Allbright, Vietnam is currently in the group of 5 countries that export the most goods to Walmart's global system. Vietnamese goods have not only penetrated the Walmart system in the United States but also in other major markets such as China, Canada, Mexico...

In the coming time, the Group's strategy is to focus on building Vietnam into an Asian regional goods supply centre.

Walmart currently purchases billions of USD of goods from Vietnam each year, however, it is still focusing largely on items such as textiles, footwear, food...

In the coming time, Walmart will focus on expanding purchasing activities to groups of household items, electrical and electronic equipment, and toys of all kinds...

The Vice Chairman of Walmart Group requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade to help support the process of expanding operations and enhancing the stability of the supply chain of Walmart Group in Vietnam, especially in the context of the increasing risk of supply chain disruption caused by trade conflicts and global geopolitical tensions.

Minister Nguyen Hong Dien highly appreciated Walmart Group's supply diversification strategy. He thanked Walmart for choosing Vietnam as the key to developing its supply chain in the future.

The Minister suggested that in the coming time, Walmart needs to promote purchasing in Vietnam, strengthen coordination with units of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in training, improve business capacity, and disseminate market information so that businesses can proactively build production and export strategies when participating in supplying to the global distribution, wholesale and retail system.

According to Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, as the world's factory, Vietnam is proactively and actively participating deeply in the global production network and value chain. Therefore, Vietnam's perspective is to continue to develop supporting industries, through this, Vietnam can proactively control input materials and components, and strive to ensure a "clean and stable supply chain". This also ensures absolute compliance with regulations on sustainable development that Vietnam has committed to in free trade agreements, including protecting nature and the environment and preventing the use of forced labour...

Based on the positive trade connection results when participating in the Vietnam Sourcing 2023 event, Walmart Group agreed to send a delegation of senior leaders and purchasing offices in the region to participate in the series of events.

Walmart also proposed that on the occasion of the Event Series, it will promote guidance, training, and development of Vietnamese suppliers to effectively export to the Walmart Marketplace e-commerce platform, thereby accessing the Walmart system worldwide.​

MARD Minister Le Minh Hoan praised Walmart's position on the worldwide market and its approach to establishing standards to ensure customers’ benefits. The Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is pushing its role in coordinating material supply and developing codes for agricultural, livestock, and aquaculture facilities to assure food safety, quality, and adherence to environmental requirements. This sets the groundwork for connecting Vietnam's agro-forestry-fishery products to global hypermarkets, including Walmart, therefore mitigating market volatility and disruptions to the global supply chain.

Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, in the United States. It operates a chain of hypermarket chains, grocery stores,s and department stores in the US. Walmart runs around 10,500 hypermarkets and e-commerce websites in 24 countries. International Walmart comprises 5,100 retail stores and over 550,000 affiliated businesses globally.