Vietnam and China aim to raise their bilateral trade to 60 billion USD by 2015 from 41 billion USD last year.

To realise this goal, both sides are speeding up their key economic-trade cooperation projects in energy, industry and transportation.

China is the biggest trade partner of Vietnam , while Vietnam is one of the key partners of China in the Association of Southeast Asian nations, said Commercial Counsellor of Vietnam Embassy to China Bui Huy Hoang.

Two-way trade was estimated at 32 billion USD in August this year, up 20 percent against the same period last year.

Vietnam mainly imports oil and gas, iron and steel, fertiliser and automobile and motorbike spare parts, while exporting crude oil, farm produce, seafood, minerals, forest products, garments and textile, footwear and electronic goods to the market.

China has hundreds of projects with registered investment totalling 5 billion USD in most of the provinces and cities in Vietnam .

As of August this year, China had 915 valid projects worth 4.8 billion USD in Vietnam , ranking 13 rd out of 100 nations and territories directly investing in Vietnam .

With an abundant and low-cost labour source, Vietnam is seen as an attractive market for Chinese investors, said deputy director general of the Asian affairs department under Chinese Ministry of Commerce Liang Wentao.

He said his country not only pours money into Vietnam’s big cities but also local provinces sharing borders with China such as Lao Cai, Lang Son, Cao Bang, and Lai Chau.

These projects mainly focus on mining raw materials.-VNA