Russia, Vietnam target early FTA signing

This is an area of strategic cooperation, bringing huge benefit for all participating parties, said Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai and his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov, while co-chairing the 17th session of the Vietnam-Russia Intergovernmental Committee for Economic, Commercial, Scientific, and Technological Cooperation in Vladivostok city on September 6.

At the session, participants discussed measures to overcome challenges and beef up bilateral ties in such fields as economics, trade, and science and technology, with a view to achieving higher two-way trade turnover.

Hai and Shuvalov reviewed the development of Vietnam-Russia relations over the past year, especially the implementation of prioritized tasks to foster their strategic comprehensive partnership established.

The two countries held an annual strategic dialogue on security, defence and diplomacy, and supported each other at international forums, including the United Nations, APEC, ASEM, and ASEAN-Russia.

It was reported at the meeting that Vietnam-Russia trade ties grew and flourished last year, with their trade value hitting US$2.758 billion, up 12.61% from a year earlier. However, the trade value in the first seven months of 2014 fell 1% to US$1.52 billion.

As of June 2014, Russia had invested around US$2 billion in 101 projects in Vietnam, ranking 18th among foreign investors in this Southeast Asian nation. Meanwhile, Vietnam had poured approximately US$2.5 billion in 20 Russia-based projects,  mostly in oil and gas, real estate, food processing, footwear, garment and textile industries.

Both sides reached consensus on a number of measures to promote trade exchange despite economic and political changes in Europe.

Deputy PM Hai expressed Vietnam’s wish to strengthen cooperation with Russia in the energy sector and called for Russia’s assistance for Vietnam in human resource training to develop nuclear power plants and boost mineral exploration and exploitation.

He touched upon other issues of mutual concern, including opening a direct air route from Vietnam to Vladivostok city and implementing several key projects related to manufacturing, shipbuilding, automobile assembling, trade, finance, banking, agriculture, education, and technology transfer.

Hosts and guests reached many agreements on seafood export and food processing to meet increasing demand in the Russian market in the future.

They agreed to hold the 18th session of the committee in the second half of 2015.