Communist Review - Globalization and international integration bring many opportunities but also pose many difficulties and challenges. Today, one of the requirements and tasks for Vietnamese culture is to strongly develop unique cultural products and services, in order to both build a healthy cultural market and contribute to the socio-economic development, enhancing the promotion of the country’s image and people to the world.

Requirements of cultural product and service development in the new context

Culture not only contributes to knowledge transferring, aesthetics educating, important socio-cultural value conveying, but also is a manufacturing industry, an area that contributes to economic growth as well as sustainable development. Many countries in the world have recognized culture as one of the main pillars of the creative economy, an important area of ​​international trade and competition. Recognizing the dual value of culture, many governments around the world have focused on developing and expanding cultural industries as part of their strategy of economic diversification, stimulating economic growth, prosperity and happiness. Cultural industries together with the “flow” of their products and services have generated significant income, bringing new opportunities for enterprises, especially small and medium ones.

In the effort of international integration, the Strategy for the development of Vietnamese cultural industries to 2020, with a vision to 2030 (hereinafter referred as the Strategy) was issued. This is a comprehensive national strategy for the development of cultural industries, covering 12 cultural industries. The objectives of the Strategy have posed direct impacts on the formation of a cultural market with cultural products and services to meet the requirements of sustainable development and international integration of Viet Nam. The development of cultural industries to become an important service economy will not only positively contribute to economic growth and job creation, but also satisfy the needs of cultural creativity, enjoyment and consumption of the people, contributing to cultural export, promoting the image of the country and people of Viet Nam.

Producing more and more diverse cultural products and services with high quality, establishing brands of cultural products and services, giving priority to developing industries with many advantages and potentials of Viet Nam are the inevitable steps to implement this Strategy. In the current context, the contribution of cultural products and services to gross domestic product (GDP) has an opportunity to increase when being integrated with the digital and the sharing economy, with the use of e-commerce and other diverse opportunities emerging in the digital space.

Nowadays, the increase of global trade in culture has proved that culture is a kind of “soft powers”, spreading beyond borders, fostering cultural dialogues, and understandings among countries. The strong development of cultural products and services positively contributes to the propagation and enhancement of values ​​of Vietnamese culture, country and people in particular and cultural diversity as well as sustainable development of humanity in general. However, in the context of globalization and international integration, the risk of assimilation and cultural dependence with the support of the media, development of science and technology and the digital environment is increasingly high. Culture of big countries with the pervasive power can affect the cultural life of Viet Nam, the abundance of Vietnamese cultural goods and services on domestic and international markets is the “soft power” culture, making culture deeply penetrate into people’s lives, contributing to preserving the national cultural identity, limiting the risk of cultural dependence on other countries.

Digital transformation has created new opportunities, possibilities and challenges for the ways of operation of cultural industry. Developed digital technologies provide easier access to cultural contents, which are not limited by national borders; however it also requires that each cultural product must be different and unique in content with new ideas in order to create competitive advantages in the market. Developed countries in the world are rapidly moving to digital economies, creative economies, and digitalizing cultural contents. These changes have brought great opportunities to reduce production costs, contributing to creating distribution channels, promoting new products. The shift of the economic structure in the direction of industry - service, together with the rapidly increasing urbanization rate has set the requirements to motivate individuals, organizations, units working in culture and arts developing cultural goods and services, building closer relationships with markets, with the public/consumers, diversifying revenues through cultural practices linked to the needs of current life, thereby enhancing the overall role and value of culture. It can be said that the institutional environment, creative capacity, management apparatus, production processes, business skills, digital technology etc. bring opportunities but also pose great challenges for the culture industry of Viet Nam in the international integration process.

Current development of cultural products and services in Viet Nam today

Viet Nam is a country with abundant cultural resources, which are diverse in types and high value in many aspects, with nearly 40,000 historical and cultural relics, landscapes, more than 59,000 intangible culture heritages, being distributed throughout the country. The rich cultural heritage system with magnificent landscapes and heritages are recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as invaluable assets, with the potential to transform into unique products and services, contributing to economic and commercial growth as well as creating brand name and position of Vietnamese culture.

In recent years, Vietnamese cultural products and services have been increasingly developed with diversified contents and forms, and forming and developing cultural markets. Many new cultural forms, products and services have been explored, tested and performed to meet the increasingly diverse and in-depth needs of people of all walks of life and begin to reach out to the world. Many new products have been meticulously composed, invested, and set the stage with plentiful and quite special contents, appearing a lot of high-quality works in the fields of cultural industries. The appearance of a vibrant, multi-colored, professionally developed cultural industry is gradually being formed, initially participating in the country’s socio-economic development. In the film industry, the revenue reached 11,073 billion VND in 2016. In 2017, It reached 3,228 billion VND (about 140 million USD), and 3,353 billion VND (about 145 million USSD) in 2018. In 2019, there were about 264 mobile cinemas all over the country, serving about 9 million people. To commercial film market, there are about 1,050 movie houses in 204 groups of cinema. Statistics from major cinema systems across the country show that the total movie revenue of Viet Nam in 2019 reached over 4,100 billion VND (an increase of 26% compared to 2018). 2019 was also the year with the highest revenue of Vietnamese films in the history of the box office, Vietnamese films accounted for 29% of the total film industry revenue, about 1,150 billion VND (an increase of more than 40% compared to 800 billion VND of 2018). In the field of advertisement, according to the Vietnamese Advertising Association, currently Viet Nam has about 6,000 advertising businesses and methods, which are being widely performed on many mass media. Revenue from advertising industry on the media in 2015 reached over 1 billion USD (not including advertising revenue on publications) with a relatively high growth rate in recent years, about 20% - 30%. In 2019 (as of December 15, 2019), advertising revenue on television reached 44,977 billion VND, printed newspapers reached 1,454 billion VND, outdoor advertising activities gained 1,445 billion VND, advertising on the internet achieved 16,662 billion VND. The advertising industry is striving to complete and exceed its target of 1.5 billion USD in 2020 and 3.2 billion USD in 2030. In the tourism sector, in 2015, the total revenue from tourism reached 15 billion USD (up 6.2% compared to 2014), of which cultural tourism was estimated at 10% (1.5 billion USD) of the total revenue from tourism. In 2019, the tourism industry received more than 18 million international visitors (an increase of 16.2% compared to 2018), serving 85 million domestic tourists with a total revenue of about 720,000 billion VND, was considered as one of 10 countries with the fastest growth in tourism in the world. In the publishing sector, in 2019, the publishing industry’s revenue reached over 2,600 billion VND, the profit gained about 230 billion VND (an increase of 8% compared to 2018). In addition, according to the statistics, the total annual revenue of Viet Nam’s fine art industry is about 60 million USD, while handicraft and fine arts are among the 11 industries with the largest export turnover of Viet Nam, contributing to yielding great economic profits and job opportunities, reducing the economic gap between urban and rural areas, making a big contribution to preserving and promoting the cultural values ​​of the nation.

In the field of performing arts, in 2019, the central art units promoted self-organizing art performance programs, the amount collected from tickets reach about 72.3 billion with the revenue growth of about 5% per year. Local art units well organize cultural, artistic and mobile performance activities in many localities, remote, border and island areas. Many newly born art shows prove the potential of strong development of the cultural industry in the form of performing and entertainment arts. Some outstanding products and services have been formed, creating international brands, such as “A O show”, “The Quintessence of the North”, “Memory of Hoi An”, “The rhythm of the homeland” puppet show etc. have made strong impression and attraction to Vietnamese audiences as well as foreign tourists. Besides, the annual production, circulation, and trading of sound and video recordings still gain relatively stable developments.

However, until now Vietnamese culture has not been well familiar to the international, not really becoming a brand name for many reasons, both subjective and objective. Vietnamese cultural products and services have not really made a spectacular breakthrough and a strong impression on the international people. Meanwhile, foreign cultural goods are increasingly spreading, strongly influencing and dominating the consumption trend of Vietnamese people. According to a report published in 2018 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), out of 130 countries reported there was no information on the current status of Vietnamese cultural products and services. In another report titled: “Cultural trade globalization: consumption change - The flow of international cultural goods and services 2004 - 2013”⁽¹⁾  published by UNESCO-UIS in 2016, Viet Nam ranked 17^th among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of importing cultural goods, design and innovation services. However, Viet Nam is not on the list of countries that export most cultural goods to the world. Obviously, the importation of foreign cultural products into Viet Nam is outperforming cultural exports. This report also shows that the period of 2008 - 2018 witnessed the increasing roles of some countries, such as China, South Korea, Japan, India, Malaysia, and Turkey etc. in the export of cultural goods. These are countries that play an important role in the global market for visual arts and handicrafts. In general, the reality shows that cultural service trading is largely dominated by developed countries, while there are many challenges facing a developing country like Viet Nam.

The modest position of Vietnamese cultural products and services in the international arena can be explained with many different reasons. Firstly, it is the governance institution to promote the cultural service market is not yet fully improved. Laws and sub-law documents in the fields of culture and cultural industries have not really come to life, state management and business skills have not yet adapted to the market mechanism, while bureaucracy and lack of transparent still exist. The management apparatus is cumbersome and complex. Cultural organizations are still dependent on subsidies from the State, not being dynamic and diversifying their business models at maximum level. In general, state investment in the cultural sector is low and lack of specific measures and mechanisms to encourage social resources to invest in culture.

Solutions in the coming time 

With a population of nearly 100 million, Viet Nam is large market for a wide range of goods, including cultural goods and services, especially when people’s incomes have been raised, making the demand for cultural enjoyment increasingly high and diverse in recent years. Socio-economic development and international integration also create important prerequisites for cultural development with diverse and unique products and services. In the context of globalization and international integration, to build a cultural life that is both vibrant, diverse and in-depth with high-value products as well as creating a strong brand name for the country, contributing to bringing about diverse social, economic and cultural benefits, we should have a strategic vision as well as appropriate solutions which are constantly innovated their contents and forms so that Viet Nam’s cultural potential could be transformed into an industry achieving value-added products and services, creating a competitive advantage domestically and internationally. Specifically, it is necessary to carry out the comprehensive solutions as follows:

Firstly, promoting the works of information and communication to raise awareness about the role of cultural products and services in popularizing the image of the country and people of Viet Nam to the world. Cultural products are the combination of creativeness, production and trading, exploitation of intangible contents, creating cultural products and services, which are protected by copyright law and related ones. These products and services have both artistic and economic value, being operated according to the rules of the commodity economy and strongly supported by technological factors.

Secondly, focusing on human resource training and cultivation, building suitable mechanisms of preferential treatment to mobilize domestic and international talents to participate in the creation of Vietnamese cultural products, to produce cultural products reflecting issues that the society and community are being concerned. The requirement for the formation of era cultural products but being imbued with national identity requires the combined efforts made by the staff who are highly creative and deeply understanding in the national culture and the “language” era. Promoting the dynamism and acumen of subjects participating in the field of cultural product and service production, with more emphasis on the role of overseas Vietnamese artists and intellectuals living in Viet Nam. This team both has a rich cultural capital and international experience and is imbued with Vietnamese culture, being able to convey Vietnamese culture in international languages.

Thirdly, continuously implementing the policy of cultural socialization effectively. Considering and selecting qualified areas that can be converted to socialization models to exploit their advantages while protecting “vulnerable” areas in case of being lack of resources provided by the State. Creatively and effectively applying the model combining creative human resources/talents, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, competitive legal environment, innovative synergies and working networks etc.

Fourthly, increasingly approaching the needs of cultural - art products of the public and consumers. Promoting the public’s approach and participation in the process of forming cultural products and services. To make cultural products developing, they should be formed according to social needs, exploring their own segments of market as well as meeting the unique needs of the public. Therefore, it is necessary to step by step form a community of consumers of cultural products and services in the country through promotional activities, making favorite conditions for the public to approach and use cultural products and services, promoting the role of propaganda and education of cultural units and organizations in order to develop the capacity to understand and perceive cultural products and services for the public and consumers.

Fifthly, improving the State’s efficiency in culture management. Continously developing and improving the mechanisms and policies, creating a more appropriate and favorable legal environment for the creation, production, distribution and enjoyment of cultural values. Promoting effective enforcement of legal provisions on intellectual property, tax incentives, and appraisal and censorship regulations on the promulgation and dissemination of cultural works etc. Attaching importance to upgrading infrastructure, especially information technology infrastructures, to apply modern science - technology and digital achievements to support and improve the capacity of creativity and management, production, sales and approach to cultural products and services. Reforming the approach to governance and investment to promote growth and innovation in the cultural field.

Sixthly, strengthening international cooperation in culture. Connecting networks, actively organizing cultural exchange activities with other countries and international organizations; attaching importance to integrating cultural programs in association with diplomatic events, regional and international cultural exchanges; expanding joint venture cooperation with foreign organizations in investing in technical facilities, organizing cultural - art programs, products and festivals; thereby, improving the performing qualifications and capacities of the cultural creation staff as well as enhancing international integration for the domestic cultural industry, selectively absorbing the cultural quintessence of the mankind, bringing the quintessence of contemporary regional and international culture - art closer to the domestic public./.

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(1) “The globalization of cultural trade: a shift in consumption - International flows of cultural goods and services 2004-2013”, do the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) & The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) (UNESCO-UIS) published in 2016,  158 - 167 pages

This article was published in the Communist Review, No. 947 (August 2020)