According to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) experts, with an annual growth rate of 4.8%, Vietnam is currently among the three largest woodwork exporters to Japan. In the first six months of this year, Vietnam exported $163 million worth of wood products to Japan, the country’s second-largest wood-product importer after the US. However, the agency said there were potential opportunities to further boost exports as Japanese consumers tended to prefer products from ASEAN countries, which account for nearly 72% of goods exported to Japan.

JICA senior expert Kenji Togawa said that to boost exports to Japan, Vietnamese woodwork products should push to catch up with the tastes of Japanese consumers. Togawa said that the Japanese youth prefer convenient products with reasonable price tags, adding that they often selected products made of artificial and cultivated wood. The old, meanwhile, like more classical and durable wood products.

Besides quality, Japanese consumers also paid due attention to product’s exteriors; therefore, packaging and detailed information labeled on the products, including origin, materials, size, usage, warnings and the name of the producer were also necessary to attract Japanese consumers.

To meet the myriad tastes of Japan’s fastidious customers, Togawa recommended that Vietnamese woodwork producers enter Japan’s market through Japanese importers, as the importers would be persons who could provide Vietnamese exporters with timely and necessary information about the tastes of Japanese consumers.

Staying in touch with such importers would also help Vietnamese producers map out better development strategies with more effective access to the Japanese market.

Lesprom.ru