Feb. 18 – A total of 169 licenses were granted to foreign distributors in provinces and cities across the country last year with most of them investors from South Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Italy, France and Germany.

Vietnam’s distribution market only fully opened to foreign investors on Jan. 1, 2009 in fulfillment of its World Trade Organization obligations that allows foreign companies to establish wholly foreign-owned distribution companies.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, of the total distributors, 41 were newly-established companies while the others were expanding operations.

Specifically, 143 were distributing machinery, equipment and materials while the others did business in consumer goods. Foreign companies can also enter the market for distributing tractors, vehicles, machinery, cars and motorbikes as well as additional commodities of liquors, cement and clinker, fertilizer, steel and iron, paper, vehicle tires and audiovisual equipment.