Vietnam has become an increasingly important sourcing market for international buyers, but finding the right suppliers is not always straightforward. There are thousands of manufacturers across the country, spread across different industrial clusters, and the quality of information available online varies considerably. A company website may provide a useful introduction, but it rarely tells a buyer enough about actual production capability, export experience or whether a supplier is suitable for a particular sourcing program.
Trade fairs can shorten that process, provided the right suppliers are actually there. This is where Vietnam International Sourcing Expo (VIS) is worth looking at. Unlike a general consumer exhibition, VIS was established around a fairly specific objective: bringing international purchasing organizations to Vietnam and connecting them with Vietnamese manufacturers and exporters.
The event is still young. Its first edition was held in 2023, and VIS 2026 was only its fourth year. That makes it very different from some Asian sourcing fairs with decades of history. For an international buyer, however, the more useful question is not how old the exhibition is, but whether it can provide enough relevant suppliers to justify adding Ho Chi Minh City to a sourcing itinerary.
A trade fair built around Vietnam’s export supply
VIS is held at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC) in Ho Chi Minh City and is hosted by Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade. The exhibition is part of a broader government effort to connect Vietnamese companies directly with overseas distribution networks.
When the first edition was announced in 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Trade expected around 300 participating companies and approximately 200 international delegations from 30 countries and territories. The event was launched at a time when international companies were reassessing supply chains following the disruptions of the pandemic and looking more closely at alternative manufacturing locations. Vietnam’s growing role in supply-chain diversification was explicitly part of the context in which the event was introduced.
The basic concept has remained consistent since then. Vietnamese suppliers present their products and manufacturing capabilities in Ho Chi Minh City, while the Ministry’s network of overseas Trade Offices helps bring international retailers, importers, distributors and purchasing organizations to Vietnam. The exhibition is supplemented by B2B meetings and, in some editions, programs connecting visiting buyers with factories and businesses outside the exhibition venue.
This structure is particularly relevant for buyers who are not simply looking for finished products, but are evaluating Vietnam as a potential sourcing base.
What can actually be sourced at VIS?
VIS is not equally relevant to every purchasing category. Its strongest representation reflects industries where Vietnam already has an established manufacturing and export base.
The inaugural edition included food, textiles and apparel, footwear, bags and backpacks, sports and outdoor products, household products, furniture and supporting industries. By 2026, the exhibition had been structured around four broader groups: Food & Beverage, Home & Houseware, Lifestyle & Personal Care, and Export Supply Chain.
For buyers, the first three groups are probably the easiest to understand. Food & Beverage includes agricultural products, processed food and beverages. Home & Houseware covers furniture, interior and exterior decoration, household products, handicrafts and construction materials. Lifestyle & Personal Care includes fashion, accessories, personal electronics, cosmetics, wellness and other consumer lifestyle products.
The fourth group is somewhat different. Export Supply Chain includes logistics providers, packaging companies, machinery and material suppliers, industrial parks and other businesses supporting manufacturing and international trade. This makes the exhibition broader than a pure finished-goods sourcing fair, although buyers should not assume that all four sections will be equally relevant to their own purchasing requirements.
For companies sourcing consumer goods, furniture, food, textiles, footwear, fashion and home products, the overlap with Vietnam’s existing export strengths is relatively clear. A buyer looking for highly specialized industrial equipment or a niche component should examine the exhibitor directory much more carefully before deciding to travel.
How large is the Vietnamese supplier base at the show?
One concern international buyers sometimes have when visiting an Asian trade fair is whether the exhibition really represents the manufacturing base of the host country. A show may take place in one country while a significant share of its exhibitors comes from somewhere else. That may be perfectly acceptable for a general sourcing exhibition, but it is less useful for a buyer whose specific objective is to identify suppliers in Vietnam.
VIS is positioned differently. Vietnamese manufacturers and exporters form the core supplier base of the event. Official information for VIS 2025 reported more than 400 Vietnamese exhibiting companies presenting approximately 12,000 export-ready products. The 2026 event again recorded more than 400 participating companies across 12,000 m² of exhibition space.
This should not be interpreted to mean that every exhibitor is a Vietnamese-owned manufacturer. The exhibition also accommodates FDI companies operating in Vietnam, international participants and businesses providing logistics, packaging, machinery and other supply-chain services. Even among product suppliers, buyers still need to establish which companies manufacture in-house and which rely on subcontracting or trading.
For a buyer interested in diversifying sourcing into Vietnam, however, the composition of the exhibition is useful because Vietnamese supply is central to the event rather than being represented by a small national pavilion inside a much larger regional show.
The buyer side has also expanded
The international component of VIS has grown noticeably since 2023. The first edition was expected to receive around 200 international delegations from 30 countries and territories. In 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported activities involving approximately 300 international distribution channels and purchasing delegations from 60 countries and territories, alongside around 2,000 planned B2B connections.
Official information following VIS 2025 referred to 450 foreign business delegations from 60 countries and territories. At VIS 2026, organizers reported more than 10,112 visitors, representation from more than 60 countries and territories and over 3,000 B2B appointments. The exhibition also hosted seven seminars and discussion sessions.
The visitor figure is useful for understanding the overall scale of the event, but it should not be confused with the number of international buyers. Visitors can include local companies, service providers, exhibitors, media and other participants. For a sourcing organization, the 3,000 B2B appointments are arguably more informative because they show that structured business matching has become a significant part of the event.
Even that number has limitations. Published totals do not tell a buyer how those meetings were distributed across categories, countries or company types, nor do they show how many resulted in RFQs, sampling programs or subsequent orders. Aggregate exhibition statistics are therefore useful for assessing scale, but they should not replace an examination of the actual exhibitor directory.
Global retailers provide context, but buyers should read the names carefully
International retail and sourcing names have featured prominently in VIS communications. For the first edition, Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade referred to companies including Walmart, Amazon, Aeon, Uniqlo, Carrefour, Decathlon, Central Group, Coppel, IKEA and LuLu in connection with participation or sourcing interest. Promotional materials for the 2026 event also displayed names including Amazon, Central Retail, Walmart, Coppel, LuLu, H&M, Uniqlo, Costco and REWE Group.
These names help illustrate the type of international purchasing organizations VIS aims to attract, but they should not be interpreted as a guarantee that a particular sourcing team will attend every edition or that every product category will be represented by those companies. Buyers and suppliers interested in meeting a specific retailer should confirm participation, purchasing categories and meeting arrangements directly rather than relying on a logo in promotional material.
The same principle applies to the overall international attendance numbers. Sixty countries represented at an event sounds impressive, but a buyer sourcing furniture does not necessarily benefit from the presence of companies purchasing food or apparel. Category relevance remains more important than the headline number.
The exhibition can be the beginning of the sourcing process, not the end
Perhaps the more interesting aspect of VIS is what a buyer can do after identifying potential suppliers at the exhibition.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has used its overseas Trade Office network not only to invite purchasing delegations but also to coordinate sourcing activities around the event. In 2024, this included programs connecting visiting delegations with Vietnamese companies and production facilities. VIS materials have continued to present business matching and local field or factory visits as part of the wider sourcing program.
This matters because supplier qualification cannot be completed at an exhibition booth. A buyer may be able to examine samples, discuss indicative pricing, understand product ranges and assess whether communication with a supplier is workable, but questions about actual manufacturing capability require further investigation.
For OEM, ODM and private-label programs, a factory visit may reveal much more than a catalogue. Buyers can examine which production processes are performed in-house, available machinery, capacity, testing facilities, quality-control procedures, product-development capability and the extent to which production is subcontracted. Certifications can also be checked against the actual factory and product being sourced.
For this reason, VIS may work best when treated as the first stage of a broader sourcing trip. A buyer can use the exhibition to meet a relatively large pool of companies, reduce that pool to a manageable shortlist and then spend additional days visiting the most promising factories.
A better way to plan a trip around VIS
An international buyer considering VIS should probably begin planning before booking the flight. The exhibitor directory is the obvious starting point. Rather than asking whether 400 companies are enough to make the show worthwhile, the buyer should determine how many of those 400 companies are relevant to the sourcing brief.
If the search produces only three or four potential suppliers, flying to Vietnam specifically for the exhibition may be difficult to justify. If it produces 20 or 30 credible candidates, the calculation changes. Those companies can be researched before the event, and the strongest prospects can be contacted in advance to arrange meetings at SECC.
Factory locations should also be mapped before travelling. Vietnam’s manufacturing base is geographically dispersed, and a supplier exhibiting in Ho Chi Minh City may have its factory in another province. Leaving several days after the exhibition for factory visits can therefore make the trip substantially more productive than attending the show alone.
In practice, a well-planned sourcing visit might consist of two or three days at VIS followed by several days of supplier audits, factory meetings and commercial discussions. The exhibition provides the concentration of suppliers; the days afterwards provide the opportunity to verify what was presented at the booth.
Where VIS fits into a Vietnam sourcing strategy
VIS is still a young event and should be judged accordingly. Four editions are not enough to give it the history of Asia’s long-established sourcing exhibitions, and the published numbers do not yet provide all the information a professional buyer might want, particularly detailed breakdowns of exhibitors and B2B meetings by product category.
Nevertheless, the underlying model is relevant. Vietnam already has substantial export manufacturing capabilities across food, furniture, textiles, footwear, housewares and a range of consumer products. VIS attempts to bring a significant portion of that supplier base into one location while simultaneously bringing international purchasing organizations into the country.
For a buyer already considering Vietnam as part of a China+1 strategy, supplier diversification program or new sourcing market, this can reduce some of the initial search work. Instead of beginning with individual factory visits, the exhibition provides an opportunity to screen multiple suppliers before deciding where further due diligence is worthwhile.
The decision to attend should therefore start with the exhibitor list rather than the overall size of the show. More than 10,000 visitors, 400 participating companies and 3,000 B2B meetings tell us that VIS has reached a meaningful scale. They do not tell an individual buyer whether the right suppliers will be there.
That answer can only be found by looking at the companies behind those numbers.
For international buyers considering a sourcing trip to Vietnam, VIS is perhaps most useful not as a destination by itself, but as a starting point for finding, meeting and then visiting Vietnamese suppliers.
Chuyên gia với 15 năm kinh nghiệm trong lĩnh vực Sales Xuất Khẩu. Tôi đồng hành cùng các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam từ các dự án MS đến OBM, từ Indonesia, Đông Âu tới thị trường Mỹ hay Argentina xa xôi.