Vietnam, China look to stronger trade links and logistics cooperation

In his speech, Vietnamese Ambassador to China Dang Minh Khoi reviewed Vietnam's socio-economic development achievements in 2017, which witnessed the positive development of the comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership between the two nations as demonstrated by the regular exchange of high level visits.

Notably, remarkable progress was also achieved in a multitude of fields such as national defense, security, foreign affairs, economics, trade, tourism, people-to-people exchange, and cooperation between localities.

Bilateral trade turnover has risen to beyond the US$100 billion mark. Vietnam is currently China's largest trading partner in ASEAN and ranks eighth in the world. Chinese enterprises are also placed eighth among foreign investors in the Southeast Asian nation.

The Vietnamese diplomat assured the Vietnamese Government’s readiness to offer optimal conditions for foreign businesses, including those from China’s Chongqing city, to make investment in high-tech projects in the country.

Vietnam is speeding up industrialisation and modernization and is giving priority to the development of high-tech industries, green technologies, clean energy, organic agriculture and digital economy, among others. Investors should pay greater attention to protecting the environment and ensuring labourers’ benefits and social welfare in the host nation, Khoi noted.

He expressed his hope that China will open its doors for the products which are of Vietnam’s strengths and China’s demand such as farm produce, pork and dairy products. 

Facilitating Vietnamese products in the custom clearance procedures is an important step towards developing two-way trade into a healthier and more balanced manner, he said.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh held that Vietnam and China boast huge potential for stepping up logistics cooperation.

Vietnam’s logistics service has enjoyed strong growth with an annual increase of 20-25% . According to the World Bank’s rankings, Vietnam is 64th out of 160 countries in the world and 4th in ASEAN after Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in logistics development.

Goods exchange between Vietnam and Chongqing is diverse, abundant and greatly complementary. Many Chongqing businesses are successfully doing business with their Vietnamese partners in different fields, significantly contributing to Vietnam's economic growth over recent years, Khanh said while showing his wish that both sides would promote business connectivity in order to fully exploit their cooperation potential.

Deputy Mayor of Chongqing city Liu Guiping said that multi-model transportation, cross-border road transport and international railways are three main types of transportation helping to connect Chongqing and China’s western localities with Vietnam and other ASEAN nations. He said he hopes that that enterprises will work closely to bolster cooperation in the field.

On the occasion, the leaders witnessed the signing of a number of agreements on strengthening logistics cooperation between enterprises from both nations.