Minister of Planning and Investment Vu Huy Hoang and Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng reached consensus on initiatives to boost bilateral economic, trade and industrial cooperation during their working session in Beijing on April 8.
They agreed to increase trade in farm produce, especially Vietnamese rice through simplified legal frameworks, as well as open Vietnam trade promotion offices in several Chinese localities as mentioned in an agreement signed between the two governments. Border trade also received their attention with plans to build cross-border economic cooperation zones.
Minister Hoang called for the clearing of barriers in chemical, energy and metallurgy projects where China serves as an engineering-procurement-construction contractor in Vietnam.
Both sides agreed to send a working delegation to China shortly.
Also the same day, Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh accepted Chairman of the National Development and Reform of China Xu Shaoshi’s invitation to return to China to realise infrastructure commitments signed in a memorandum of understanding on establishing a Working Group on road infrastructure.
They also shared the wish to continue sharing experience and investment activities.
In a separate working session, Minister Vinh and his host Minister Gao reviewed the progress of the 2012-2016 master plan for Vietnam-China socio-economic development and pledged to hold a meeting to choose key projects to add to their portfolios.
China requested Vietnam’s support for the opening of industrial parks in the southern province of Tien Giang and the northern city of Haiphong.
Vinh highly valued China’s efforts in accelerating the construction of the Vietnam-China Friendship Cultural Palace in Hanoi, and the host pledged to work closely with Vietnam to complete the project as soon as possible.
The two ministers also committed their continued assistance to investors active in each country.
Ministers Hoang and Vinh are accompanying Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on his visit to China from April 7-10.
According to Vietnamese Customs, Vietnam-China import-export value was US$58 billion in 2014, up 17% from 2013. Trade from January-March grew 17.5% annually to US$14.6 billion.
