Prime Minister's trip to open markets and attract capital flows from the Middle East
Báo Dân trí•01/11/2024
(Dan Tri Newspaper) - Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh 's visit to three Middle Eastern countries demonstrates innovative thinking, strategic vision, strong commitment, and decisive action in promoting cooperation with this region, which is rich in potential.
This assessment was emphasized by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son when answering questions from the press following Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit and working trip to three Middle Eastern countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar).
According to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, the visit is a significant milestone, demonstrating the rapidly developing relationship between Vietnam and the three countries. Mr. Bui Thanh Son also shared many special meanings of this visit. First, the visit affirms the new thinking, new strategic vision, and high determination of Vietnamese leaders in bringing relations with the three key countries of the Gulf region into a new, stronger, more comprehensive, and deeper level of trust, with more opportunities. The visit has elevated relations between Vietnam and the three countries in particular, and with the Middle East and North Africa region in general. "The official upgrading of relations with the UAE to a Comprehensive Partnership has opened up new development space for bilateral relations, expanding our Comprehensive Partnership network to 13 countries," Mr. Son emphasized. Furthermore, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, the agreement between Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to promote the early elevation of relations to a new level in the near future has created momentum for the comprehensive development of friendly relations and multifaceted cooperation between Vietnam and these countries, providing leverage to strengthen relations with other important partners in the Middle East and North Africa region.
"Innovative thinking, strategic vision, strong commitment, and decisive action" to promote multifaceted cooperation with the potentially rich Middle East region is also a message clearly expressed during this visit, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He stated that the Prime Minister's visit has significantly opened up markets for Vietnamese export goods, while attracting high-quality investment capital from leading global investment funds and corporations, expanding cooperation in priority areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, clean energy, green transformation, digital transformation, innovation, and the development of the Halal industry...
A "historic" and groundbreaking agreement on investment and economic cooperation.
During his visit to three Middle Eastern countries, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a packed, rich, substantive, and effective work schedule with nearly 60 activities. The head of the Vietnamese government held talks and meetings with high-ranking leaders, ministers, and leaders of major corporations and investment funds from the three countries; delivered a speech at the 8th Future Investment Initiative (FII8) conference in Saudi Arabia; and participated in many other practical activities. Meanwhile, many ministers and local leaders participating in the delegation also had dozens of meetings and working sessions with partners. "The Prime Minister's visit was a great success, achieving its set goals with many important and substantive results, contributing to consolidating and strengthening friendly relations and cooperation with the three countries," the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs stated.
According to him, the thoughtful and respectful reception given to the Prime Minister by the leaders of the three countries, with many special privileges granted, demonstrates that all three countries value their relationship with Vietnam within their "Look East" policy, and consider Vietnam a top priority partner in Southeast Asia. The leaders of the three countries all highly appreciate Vietnam's potential, development achievements, and increasingly important position and role. In meetings with the Prime Minister, the leaders of the largest investment funds and corporations from the three countries also highly appreciated Vietnam's development potential. They were very enthusiastic and affirmed that after the visit, they would immediately send delegations to Vietnam to explore investment and business opportunities. Providing further information on specific results, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that, in addition to strengthening political trust, many important documents were adopted, including the Joint Declaration on upgrading Vietnam-UAE relations to a Comprehensive Partnership, the joint press release between Vietnam and Qatar, and 33 cooperation agreements in the fields of trade and investment, finance, energy, innovation, standards, measurement and quality, education and training, sports, and cooperation between businesses. In particular, economic, trade, and investment cooperation also yielded breakthrough results, according to Mr. Bui Thanh Son. The two leaders witnessed the signing ceremony of the CEPA Agreement, Vietnam's first free trade agreement with an Arab country (Photo: Doan Bac). A prime example is the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE. This is the 17th free trade agreement that Vietnam has signed, aiming for bilateral trade turnover to reach US$20 billion in the near future... With Saudi Arabia, both sides agreed on a trade turnover target of US$10 billion; promoting Saudi Arabia as one of the leading investors in Vietnam. With Qatar, both sides agreed to strive to increase bilateral trade turnover; study the establishment of a joint working group on trade; consider the possibility of building a Vietnamese product exhibition center in Qatar; and promote cooperation in the financial sector... According to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister's visit to the three Middle Eastern countries has created new momentum, opening up many opportunities for cooperation between Vietnam and the three countries in many fields, including new and potential areas. Besides aiming to make traditional areas such as security, education, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges a solid foundation for long-term friendship and cooperation, Vietnam identifies innovation, green transformation, digital transformation, and the development of the Halal industry in Vietnam as pillars of future cooperation with other countries. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the 8th Future Investment Initiatives Conference (Photo: Duong Giang). In Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister attended the 8th Future Investment Initiative Conference and sent a message about a modern, dynamic Vietnam, ready to exchange and share ideas with other countries, and propose investment initiatives for a sustainable and prosperous future. In meetings with the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and Egypt, the Crown Prince of Jordan, and other leaders, the Prime Minister had in-depth and comprehensive discussions on relations between Vietnam and these countries, as well as measures to promote the development of these relations in all aspects.
Value "time and intelligence"
Following the visit, in the spirit of valuing "time" and "intelligence," as the Prime Minister has repeatedly emphasized, Mr. Bui Thanh Son stated that several tasks need to be prioritized. First and foremost is strengthening cooperation in all areas: political-diplomatic, defense-security, technology, agriculture , industry, energy, tourism, etc. Mr. Son suggested that regular, specific exchanges with relevant parties on both sides are necessary, based on the principle of "what is said must be done, commitments must be fulfilled." Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh encouraged Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung and Minister Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al Marri to make strenuous efforts to sign a new memorandum of understanding on labour cooperation (Photo: Doan Bac). The Deputy Prime Minister also emphasized the need to concretize the signed agreements and commitments of the high-level leaders of the two countries. Accordingly, relevant ministers and local leaders should proactively review the signed cooperation agreements, including the CEPA Agreement between Vietnam and the UAE, and develop specific action plans to ensure the highest possible progress and effectiveness in implementation.
Furthermore, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, it is necessary to continue improving the investment and business environment, creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese businesses and businesses from other countries to strengthen cooperation in investment and business. The practical results achieved after the Prime Minister's visit to three Middle Eastern countries, according to Mr. Bui Thanh Son, will contribute to the comprehensive development of friendly relations and cooperation between Vietnam and the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
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