Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives CEO Tim Cook of Apple Corporation

Updated date: 04/17/2024 05:17:45

On April 16, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received Mr. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple of the United States - the world's largest technology company and since 2019 the largest foreign investor in Vietnam (over 16 billion USD).

This is the first time Mr. Tim Cook has come to Vietnam. Previously, in May 2022 in the United States, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a meeting with Apple's CEO.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives CEO of Apple Corporation (USA) Tim Cook (Photo: VIET CHUNG)

At the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh thanked Apple and its partners for their important contributions to Vietnam's development, creating jobs for people, bringing Vietnam deeper into Apple's global supply chain, and having an increasingly important position in Apple's development strategy.

According to the Prime Minister, the Vietnam-US relationship continues to develop well, the two countries have just upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership; creating a foundation for promoting increasingly effective cooperation in all areas. In particular, the key areas of cooperation are science and technology, innovation, training of high-quality human resources, semiconductors, digital transformation and energy conversion, climate change response, environment and high-quality healthcare. Vietnam has become a major trade partner of the United States and an important link in the supply chain of many types of goods for the US market.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives CEO of Apple Corporation (USA) Tim Cook (Photo: VIET CHUNG)

According to the Prime Minister, there is still a lot of room for cooperation between Vietnam and Apple based on the bilateral relationship. Vietnam also has a large domestic consumer market with a population of 100 million people, many Vietnamese people love and are familiar with Apple products. Vietnam also participates in 17 bilateral and multilateral FTAs with about 60 major economies in the world.

The Prime Minister said that Vietnam is ready to coordinate with Apple to establish a working group to support Apple in investing and expanding its operations in Vietnam quickly, strongly, sustainably and long-term, contributing to promoting and concretizing the new framework of relations between the two countries on the basis of "harmonious benefits and shared risks".

The Prime Minister suggested that Apple focus on investing in development and expanding its business activities in Vietnam, identifying Vietnam as a stronghold of Apple globally; continue to speak out to encourage suppliers in Apple's supply chain to expand their investment and business in Vietnam, bringing qualified Vietnamese enterprises to participate more deeply in Apple's value chain; increase support and advice for Vietnam to perfect its legal system and policy mechanisms to develop science, technology and innovation; promote cooperation and association with innovation centers and software parks in Vietnam, especially the National Innovation Center; support Vietnam in training human resources, especially in the program to train 100,000 high-quality engineers, including 50,000 high-quality engineers in the semiconductor industry...

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh thanked Apple and its partners for their important contributions to Vietnam's development, creating jobs for people, and bringing Vietnam deeper into Apple's global supply chain (Photo: VIET CHUNG)

Mr. Tim Cook updated Apple's operations in Vietnam; proposed some cooperation contents with Vietnam in the fields of clean energy, digital transformation, and human resource training. Having witnessed the strong development of Vietnam's innovation community, full of vitality and energy, Mr. Tim Cook believes that this will be the "source of development" of Vietnam.

Affirming that Apple values the participation of Vietnamese application developers in Apple products around the world, he was also pleased to announce that Apple's activities have created more than 200,000 jobs in Vietnam. The company has also spent about VND400,000 billion on about 150 suppliers in Vietnam since 2019.

"I am extremely pleased and could not be happier with the achievements of cooperation that we have achieved, which is an example of a win-win, mutually beneficial relationship, and I look forward to what we can do together to achieve even greater achievements in the future," said Mr. Tim Cook.

Apple has committed to purchasing more components from its partners in Vietnam, supporting Vietnam in the field of innovation; increasing spending on suppliers in Vietnam; expanding vocational training programs for people with disabilities to promote inclusion, bringing greater opportunities for them in the supply chain.

Expressing his impression of the rich and unique culture which, according to him, "is a very important part of Vietnam", Mr. Tim Cook said that he looks forward to further promoting Vietnamese culture, including music and cinema, to the world, with the contribution of Apple Music, helping people around the world understand more about the country, people of Vietnam, the Vietnamese spirit, and Vietnamese culture.

According to PHAN THAO (SGGP)

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