A high-ranking delegation from northern Quang Ninh province paid a visit to Indonesia on June 19-20 to seek trade and investment cooperation opportunities with local partners.

During the visit, the delegation had a working session with the Batam Free Trade Zone Management Agency in the island province of Riau to study its development policies.

The Quang Ninh officials also met with leaders of Indofood, the largest food corporation in Indonesia with annual revenues of more than 5 billion USD, to learn about its potential, products and investment and market expansion strategy in Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam .

At the meeting, Secretary of the Quang Ninh provincial Party Committee Pham Minh Chinh highlighted his locality’s strengths on trade and investment cooperation, noting that Quang Ninh is a centre for mineral exploitation, a leading tourist destination in Vietnam, and an important gateway for good trading between ASEAN countries and China .

The Indofood leaders spoke highly of cooperation potential with Quang Ninh in particular and Vietnam in general, affirming that the corporation considers Vietnam one of its strategic markets in Southeast Asia which serves as a gateway for its products to penetrate China’s southern provinces.

As part of the visit, the Quang Ninh delegation also worked with Indonesia’s National Committee for Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to seek ways to develop SEZs. The two sides discussed interests that SEZs can bring about, difficulties, barriers and risks during the establishment and operation of SEZs as well as some emerging issues in SEZ development.

It also studied the Indonesian Government’s policies and experience in developing SEZs, economic and industrial zones, hi-tech parks and free trade areas.-VNA