The conference was chaired by Minister Nguyen Hong Dien and Deputy Minister Phan Thi Thang. Also attending the conference were leaders of the Asia-Africa Market Department, the Department of Personnel Organization, the Department of Planning and Finance and functional units of the Ministry of Industry and Trade , representatives of the University of Electricity, Hanoi University of Industry, Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, representatives of large corporations and enterprises of Vietnam, along with the Commercial Counselors and Heads of the Asia-Africa Regional Trade Office.
In his opening speech and direction, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien emphasized that the Conference was held to evaluate the results of the Asia-Africa Trade Office in the past time, discuss the orientation and key tasks in the coming time, listen to the opinions and proposals of the Trade Counselors/Trade Office Branch Heads to do better in the trade office work, contributing with the entire Industry and Trade sector to excellently complete the tasks assigned by the Party and the State, and actively contribute to the development of the country's economy .
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien shared that Vietnam has gone through the whole year of 2024 in a context of many difficulties and challenges from the outside and internal problems. However, the Industry and Trade sector has been proactive, creative, timely and synchronous in implementing tasks and solutions and has achieved many important and positive results, notably that industrial production, trade, and import and export in 2024 all had a clear recovery, achieving much higher results than the same period last year. Some specific results that can be mentioned are: (1) The industrial production index is estimated to increase by 9.1%, of which processing and manufacturing increased by 10.5%; (2) The domestic retail market maintained a fairly high growth rate (9.6%); the basic price level is stable; the supply of electricity, gasoline and essential goods, and input materials is guaranteed; (3) Import and export are the bright spots of the economy with a strong recovery in exports, reaching a record in many years with a turnover of over 402 billion USD, an increase of 13.5% compared to 2023; in which exports to major markets in the region all grew strongly such as West Asia increased by 33%, ASEAN increased by 14%, South Asia increased by 9.4%, Japan increased by 5%, Korea increased by 8%... The trade balance continued to have a trade surplus of over 24 billion USD, creating favorable space for monetary policy management.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien acknowledged the important and positive contributions of the Vietnamese Trade Office system abroad, including the Trade Offices in Asia - Africa - the area with many important FDI investment partners and accounting for more than 70% of Vietnam's import and export value with the world . The Trade Office officers have proactively and actively researched and synthesized the market situation and new regulations and policies of the host countries to proactively advise and advise the Ministry's leaders, management agencies and domestic enterprises to have timely, appropriate and effective policy responses; at the same time, they have also made great efforts in promoting bilateral cooperation, promoting exports, encouraging FDI attraction, effectively exploiting the frameworks of strategic partnerships, comprehensive partnerships, free trade agreements and other bilateral cooperation mechanisms, thereby practically serving the socio-economic development of the country.
According to Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, although the world and regional economies are showing signs of improvement, it is forecasted that the global trade situation will continue to face many new difficulties and challenges, especially in the Asia - Africa region (such as geopolitical instability in the Middle East, Israel, Syria, Iran or South Korea, etc.) leading to major changes in foreign policy and international trade of countries; thereby leading to many consequences for import-export activities and domestic economic growth because our country's economy has a large openness (over 200%). This context requires the Vietnamese Trade Office system abroad in general and the Asia-Africa region in particular to be more active and proactive in market research, policy advice and improving the effectiveness of supporting domestic enterprises in building and adjusting appropriate production and business strategies and plans, taking advantage of opportunities from free trade agreements of which our country is a member to develop, diversify markets and products, and boost exports.
At the Conference, the Minister suggested that delegates focus on discussing and evaluating in depth 6 important contents, which are practical and timely, not only for the development of the Industry and Trade sector, but also for the country's economic development, including:
(1) Achievements, limitations, weaknesses and causes (especially subjective causes), draw lessons; at the same time, evaluate and identify opportunities, advantages, difficulties, and challenges in the Asia-Africa market in the coming time and changes in policies of the host country to advise the Ministry and the Government to have appropriate and timely policy responses to ensure the highest interests of the country;
(2) Solutions to enhance the effectiveness of market research, build a shared market database and disseminate market information to specialized agencies of ministries, branches, associations, enterprises and localities in the country;
(3) Measures to promote trade promotion, diversify markets and export products;
(4) Experience and solutions to enhance incentives to attract investment and technology transfer from partners in the Asia-Africa region to Vietnam in the fields of platform industries, digital technology, energy transition and green development;
(5) Ability and solutions to promote negotiation and signing of Free Trade Agreements/Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with countries in the region;
(6) Propose amendments and supplements to criteria, conditions, and procedures for evaluating the task completion level of trade officers; Other relevant recommendations and proposals to continuously improve quality and efficiency.
Receiving the Minister's direction, the delegates attending the Conference listened to the leaders of the Asia-Africa Market Department present a summary report on the Trade Office's work in 2024 and the plan for 2025; listened to representatives of the Trade Office in some localities in the Asia-Africa region speak about the market situation, changes in strategies and policies of the host country that affect Vietnam, experience in attracting FDI investment, solutions to promote FTA negotiations with partners as well as solutions to expand the market and export Vietnamese goods, especially agricultural products, rice, vegetables, fruits, etc. At the same time, representatives of the Trade Office also presented the difficulties and shortcomings in the work of sticking to the locality, implementing trade office activities, thereby making proposals to improve the effectiveness of trade office work, striving to fulfill the tasks assigned by the Party, the State and the Ministry's leaders. The assessments and recommendations of the Trade Counselors/Trade Branch Heads were highly appreciated and acknowledged by the Minister and Deputy Minister Thang, considering this an important source of information to help orient policies to effectively support export enterprises, contributing positively to the country's economic growth.
In addition, representatives of Departments/Offices, functional units, representatives of Universities, corporations and enterprises under the Ministry also proposed many contents to the Trade Office System, especially support in market connection; providing information and data to build a trade data warehouse and forecast consumption trends, trade policies from target markets; support to enhance trade promotion; support to find information about prestigious training institutions in the area, connect domestic and foreign universities in training high-quality human resources... In addition, delegates also exchanged and discussed a number of issues related to the organization, finance and working conditions of the Trade Office.
Speaking at the Conference, Deputy Minister Phan Thi Thang said: (1) proposed to continue to organize the annual Conference of Trade Counselors/Branch Heads, highlighting the role of trade offices in contributing to the country's import and export turnover; (2) highly appreciated the fact that trade offices actively brought foreign business delegations to our country to attend conferences, fairs and trade as well as sending our businesses abroad to learn about the market; (3) trade offices need to actively coordinate with the Import-Export Department to assess the export situation of Vietnam's strong products in foreign markets, thereby recommending priority products for consumption in specific markets to optimize advantages; (4) requested functional units under the Ministry to create maximum conditions for trade offices in terms of working conditions and organization, so that trade offices can confidently stick to their localities.
Closing the Conference, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said that after 3 hours of active and highly effective work, the Conference listened to 31 comments from the Trade Offices and representatives of functional units under the Ministry, universities, corporations and Vietnamese enterprises. The Minister commented that since the beginning of the year, the Industry and Trade sector has achieved many successes, which cannot be mentioned without the contributions of Trade Offices abroad, expressing his welcome to the contributions of Trade Counselors/Trade Office Branch Heads to the domestic Industry and Trade sector. In addition, the Minister also pointed out a number of existing problems in the Trade Office system such as: professionalism and synchronization in Trade Office work need to continue to be improved; the connection and closeness between the Trade Office system and enterprises and business associations are not tight; the initiative and responsibility in Trade Office activities are sometimes not high; a synchronous database has not been formed between Trade Offices and functional units in the Ministry; Coordination between Trade Offices and between Trade Offices and functional units under the Ministry is not tight. On that basis, the Minister requested that Trade Offices need to study and thoroughly grasp the Party and State's guidelines and policies on the field of Industry and Trade as well as the Ministry's direction in developing and implementing work plans; strengthen the grasp of the situation and policies in the country, region and host country, especially after elections, political instability, political conflicts, promptly propose and report to the Ministry's leaders to have appropriate policy responses, ensuring the highest national and ethnic interests as well as the highest interests of Vietnamese enterprises abroad; do a good job of forecasting the situation, providing information to domestic associations and industries to make necessary adjustments in production and business strategies, and brand building; Continue to research and propose solutions for Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises wishing to invest in Vietnam to take advantage of and exploit the maximum advantages of signed free trade agreements; continue to propose research into signing new and upgrading free trade agreements with potential markets; proactively grasp the situation, continue to focus on trade defense work in the face of the increasing trend of trade defense investigations against Vietnam's export goods; continue to act as a bridge between domestic and foreign enterprises and business associations in developing economic, trade and investment relations, focusing on key domestic industries; proactively coordinate with functional units under the Ministry to complete the Trade Office database and take advantage of and exploit the database; focus on mobilizing and attracting foreign enterprises to invest in areas in which Vietnam has demand and is developing; support the monitoring of enterprises participating in trade activities in the host country; Actively provide information related to the area to the Ministry's Information Portal and press units under the Ministry.
The Minister also directed relevant units of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to actively direct, coordinate, and support the Trade Office system to effectively perform a number of specialized tasks in order to continue to innovate and improve the quality of Trade Office staff work, meet the requirements of tasks in the new situation, and contribute to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's state management in developing foreign markets.
The Asia-Africa Regional Trade Conference 2024 was a great success. The comments and recommendations at the Conference are an important basis for improving the effectiveness of the Trade Office in 2025, promoting exports in the coming time.
Source: https://moit.gov.vn/tin-tuc/hoat-dong/bo-cong-thuong-to-chuc-hoi-nghi-tham-tan-thuong-mai-va-truong-co-quan-thuong-vu-khu-vuc-chau-a-chau-phi.html
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