Vietnam positive on trade links with Australia
VOV.VN - Vietnam-Australia relations have seen steady growth over recent years, with two-way trade reaching US$15.7 billion in 2022, up 26.7% on-year, thereby making Australia the nation’s seventh largest trading partner, while Vietnam represents Australia's 10th largest trading partner.
This assessment was made by Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang at a reception held on May 17 in Hanoi for Nicholas Moore, special envoy for Southeast Asia of the Australian Government, who is on a working visit to Vietnam.
Regarding investment, Australia runs 590 projects in the nation with a total investment of nearly US$2 billion, thereby ranking 20th out of 141 countries and territories investing in the Vietnamese market, while Vietnam boasts 88 investment projects in Australia with a total capital of more than US$590 million, mainly in the fields of agriculture, forestry, wholesale and retail, processing and manufacturing.
Moore said that the Australian Government and business community highly appreciated the "quality" of the mutual relationship, affirming that the relationship with the country is a "priority" of the Australian Government.
The two sides held in-depth discussion on a range of measures aimed at more effectively exploiting the potential for more co-operation, especially in the field of trade and investment, by raising awareness among the business community and consumers of the two countries, expanding market access opportunities, whilst boosting co-operation to improve the capacity of enterprises.
Deputy PM Tran Luu Quang affirmed that the Vietnamese Government always listens to and accompanies investors in removing difficulties and building an increasingly favourable business investment environment.
He therefore requested that Australia support and share its experience with the Vietnamese side in fields such as renewable energy, digital transformation, green transformation, and climate change response, which is a common development trend taking place around the world.
Responding to the Deputy PM's request, Moore affirmed his nation’s readiness to share experience and co-operate with Vietnam in these fields because in the process of development, each country has both problems to solve and priorities to focus on.
Deputy PM Quang proposed that the Australian Government give Vietnam a worthy position in the Southeast Asian Economic Strategy to 2040, thus enabling ties between the two countries to develop better and bring practical benefits to the two peoples, for peace, stability, and prosperous development in the region and the world as a whole.
Vietnam and Australia first established diplomatic relations on February 26, 1973, before moving to upgrade their relationship to a comprehensive partnership in 2009, an enhanced comprehensive partnership in 2015, and a strategic partnership in 2018.