Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong speaks at the event (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the EuropeanChamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) co-hosted "Meet Europe 2021: EU-Vietnam PartnershipPost-COVID-19", a major business-to-government event, in Hanoi on November 25 with an aim to strengthen tiesbetween Vietnamese localities and European agencies and partners in fields ofshared concern.
In her opening remarks, Governorof the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong thanked the European Union (EU),its member states and EuroCham for donating over 15 million COVID-19 vaccinedoses to Vietnam via COVAX, Team Europe mechanisms, bilateral channels and “BreathAgain” campaign launched by EuroCham.
She hailed the EU as one of theleading development cooperation partners, the fifth largest trade partner and the sixthbiggest investor of Vietnam. She also described the EU-Vietnam Free TradeAgreement (EVFTA) that took effect on August 1, 2020 as a significant milestonein bilateral economic ties, opening up great opportunities for theirenterprises.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic,two-way trade between Vietnam and the EU still expanded by nearly 20 percentannually, reaching more than 56 billion USD last year.
At the event (Photo: VNA)
Hong expressed her belief thatonce approved, the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) willfurther deepen bilateral economic and investment ties.
The Vietnamese Government willoffer all possible support for EuroCham and its members to invest in fields ofVietnam’s priority with incentives such as information technology, supportindustry, smart agriculture, environment protection, renewable energy,infrastructure, social welfare, high-quality human resources training, use ofscience for advanced and effective management, research and development, andinnovation, she said.
EuroCham Chairman Alain Cany thankedthe Vietnamese Government for supporting European firms amid difficultiescaused by the pandemic. He suggested European countries and Vietnam make thebest use of the EVFTA and hoped that bilateral trade will recover quicklyfollowing the pandemic.
At the signing ceremony (Photo: VNA)
The event featured two sessions, withthe first focusing on policy dialogues to raise responsibility for improving businessenvironment, and the second on connecting European localities and enterprises togetherpost-pandemic with the participation of leaders from Bac Giang, Da Nang, DongNai, Khanh Hoa, Hai Duong, Quang Ninh and Thanh Hoa and outstanding Europeanbusinesses in Vietnam.
As part of the event, the 13th edition of the White Book debuted while a ceremony to sign a new Memorandum ofUnderstanding between the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry and EuroCham was held./.
