Vietnamese spend $7-8 billion on foreign services

Though Vietnam is listed as a poor country with the average income per capita at around $1,200 a year, Vietnamese have been well known in the world as the big consumers, who can spend money on the most luxurious services and most expensive cars in the world.

The Vietnam Travel Association has released a report showing that the number of Vietnamese traveling abroad increases steadily by 20 percent per annum who spend $3.5 billion abroad.

Every year, 1.1 million Vietnamese travel to China, 1 million to Cambodia, 500,000 to Thailand, 300,000 to Singapore, 200,000 to Malaysia, 110,000 to South Korea. Vietnamese also travel to further countries in Europe or America.

“The number of tourists abroad increases by 20 percent per annum, which has made Vietnam a source market for many countries in the world,” said Vu The Binh, Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Travel Association.

Also according to Binh, Vietnamese prove to be generous, spending big money during their trips abroad. According to the Thai tourism agency, every Vietnamese traveler spends $1,200 each trip. Meanwhile, the Chinese agency says a Vietnamese spends $1,000 when he comes to the vast country.

Prior to that, in January 2013, Nguyen Truong Giang, a senior official of the Ministry of Finance said Vietnamese remit $1-1.5 billion abroad every year to fund their studies at foreign schools.

It is estimated that it costs every Vietnamese student $10,000-15,000 a year to follow the training at foreign schools. Meanwhile, a report by the Ministry of Education and Training showed that in the 2011-2012 academic year, 106,000 students went studying abroad, which means that foreign schools earn $1-1.5 billion from Vietnamese students.

Commenting about the figures, educators say this is an overly big sum of money if compared with the income per capita of Vietnamese. The sum of money is equal to 50 percent of the total rice export made out by 10 million Vietnamese farmers.

The Ministry of Health has reported that 40,000 Vietnamese patients spend 2 billion dollars a year on foreign healthcare services.

It is estimated that 5,000-10,000 Vietnamese go to Singapore every year to have healthcare services. B…International hospital in Thailand alone receives 80-100 patients from Vietnam. South Korea and China also receive higher numbers of Vietnamese patients every year.

The latest survey by Kantar Worldpanel Vietnam, a subsidiary of the US WPP Group, showed that the consumption demand of Vietnamese has changed a lot. In the next 10 years, urban areas would be the potential destinations for consumer goods, high grade products and beauty products.

The Vietnamese rich people tend to spend more money on branded goods and services. Branded goods, in the minds of Vietnamese, means high prices and high quality. A luxury product or service would be price at no less than $480.

A survey by Y&R Vietnam showed that Apple, Sony, Toyota and Honda are the most popular brands to Vietnamese.

According to Bloomberg, a newswire, Rolls Royce, a luxury car manufacturer, plans to increase the number of sales agents from 105 to 120 in the next five years in Chile, Thailand and Vietnam to access the millionaires in the markets.

Hermes, a brand of high end products, also considers opening the second shop in Vietnam to boost the sales of its products here.