Vietnam, China move to tighten trade, investment links

About 150 enterprises of Vietnam and China joined in a conference held in Beijing on November 27 to promote bilateral economic, trade, and investment connections.

Addressing the event, Hoang Minh Chien, Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that trade between the two countries has sustained stable and sustainable growth, by 5.5% from 2021 to over 175 billion USD in 2022. It surpassed 103 billion USD during the first eight months of 2023.

Last year, China continued to be the largest trading partner, the biggest exporter and the second largest importer of Vietnam. As the sixth biggest trading partner of China, Vietnam ranked fifth among importers of Chinese goods and 10th among exporters to the Northeast Asian market. Vietnam also topped trading partners of China in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment (FDI) from China has been present almost across Vietnam, concentrating in coastal and populous localities with strong workforce attractiveness and favourable infrastructure for goods trading and travelling between the two countries, he noted.

Chien held that there remains huge potential for bilateral economic, trade, and investment cooperation, especially when the two economies are complementary to each other and green and circular economy is now a global trend.

He recommended enterprises of the countries seize chances to enhance cooperation to tap into the two economies’ complementarity, thereby bolstering stable and sustainable business partnerships and developing economic and trade ties to a new level.

For his part, Xu Jinli, head of the bilateral cooperation department at the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), stressed that in recent years, bilateral economic and trade relations have continued to be intensified and reaped good results. Their trade has still been on the rise despite many challenges during the global economic recovery process.

Besides, investment links have witnessed steady progress while the countries’ industrial and supply chains have been strongly connected. Vietnam is the fourth largest investment destination of China in ASEAN, and more and more Chinese enterprises are coming to invest in the Southeast Asian country, he added.

He expressed his hope that the companies taking part in the conference could make use of this chance to have in-depth discussion and build consensus in cooperation to obtain mutually beneficial results.

Source: Vietnam, China move to tighten trade, investment links | Nhan Dan Online