A US diplomat expressed hope that Vietnam and the US would together make important progress in regional economic integration, record stronger growth, create more jobs and increase income for people in the two economies.

Meeting with the Vietnamese business community in Hanoi on July 4 as part of his Vietnam visit, US Ambassador Kurt Tong, Senior Official for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Kurt Tong said that as host country of the APEC Conference 2011, the US was implementing numerous activities to boost regional cooperation.

While introducing US objectives and policies towards APEC regional economic integration, Kurt Tong stressed that the APEC economy was always highly placed among US interests as APEC members accounted for over 50 percent of the global economic output, 50 percent of global trade value and 40 percent of the world’s population.

APEC was home to nine out of Vietnam ’s top ten trade partners and six out of the ten leading trade partners of the US , he added.

On the occasion, the US Ambassador exchanged views on the APEC cooperation programme, US viewpoints on an Asia-Pacific free trade area, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as well as APEC trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation.

At the meeting, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Hoang Van Dung said that since it joined APEC in 1998, Vietnam had always made efforts to boost trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, as well as signed free trade agreements with many APEC members./.