PM leaves Vietnam for Saudi Arabia on working visit, ASEAN-GCC summit

Chinh is being accompanied by a number of ministers and deputy ministers in charge of trade-industry, labour, culture-sports-tourism, public security, foreign affairs, agriculture-rural development, investment, finance and justice.

ASEAN and GCC stablished relations in 1990 and adopted the Joint Vision in 2009.  This is the first ever summit to be held between the two sides which is expected to adopt a strategic cooperation plan with goals to be achieved in the coming two or four years.

Relations between Vietnam and six GCC member states (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman) have developed very positively. Two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and these countries reached US$12.5 billion last year. GCC states have so far poured approximately US$1 billion into Vietnam.

For Saudi Arabia, it considers Vietnam a priority partner in its Look East policy. Two-way trade turnover between the two countries reached more than US$2.7 billion last year, up 32.4% year on year.

Several leading Saudi Arabian firms have poured their investments into Vietnam’s real estate, energy and steel industries. The Saudi Fund for Development has granted preferential aid worth US$181 million to 13 projects in Vietnam.

Currently, about 4,000 - 5,000 Vietnamese nationals are working in Saudi Arabia. However, the potential for cooperation between Vietnam and GCC countries in general and Saudi Arabia in particular is still very large.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s working trip is to actively implement Vietnam’s foreign policy that is aimed at promoting and raising the level of multilateral foreign relations until 2030. It also delivers a message of a Vietnamese nation that it is ready to strengthen friendly relations, dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation to build a peaceful and stable regional and international environment with other countries.