PM attends Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne on March 5 morning (local time) as part of his ongoing trip to Australia to attend the ASEAN - Australia Special Summit and pay an official visit to Australia.
PM attends Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne ảnh 1Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh addressses the Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne on March 5 (Photo: VNA)
Melbourne (VNA) – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinhattended the Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne on March 5 morning (localtime) as part of his ongoing trip to Australia to attend the ASEAN - Australia Special Summit and pay an official visit to Australia.

Addressing the event, which drew the participation of leaders from nearly 200 enterprises ofVietnam and Australia, PM Chinh revealed that during his official visit toAustralia, the two countries are scheduled to announce the upgrade of bilateralrelations.

The Government leader expressed his expectationson five “better things” after the upgrade of the relations – better political trust, bettereconomic, trade and investment cooperation, better science-technology andinnovation collaboration, better partnership in education, training, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and better cooperation in tourism andlabour.

PM Chinh briefed participants on major policies and development achievements ofVietnam over the past years, and underlined that economic, trade and investment collaborationhas been an important pillar in the bilateral relationship.

Statistics showed that Vietnam is now home to 630 Australian-funded projects with combined registered capital of 2.03 billion USD, making Australia the 20th largest among 145countries and territories investing in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Vietnam has alsoinvested in 90 projects worth over 550 million USD in Australia.

In 2023, two-way trade reached about 14 billion USD, turningVietnam and Australia into each other’s top 10 largest trading partners.
However, PM Chinh held that the cooperation results remained modest compared to the potential and space for cooperation between the twocountries.

Therefore, he called on businesses, associations and investors of the twocountries to further promote their collaboration and pledged that the twogovernments will continue to create favourable conditions for theircooperation.

The Vietnamese Government will continue to promote threestrategic breakthroughs in terms of institutions, infrastructure and human resources, simplify administrative procedures and cut costs forinvestors, he said, proposing the Australian side to assist Vietnam in these fields.

PM Chinh suggested that the two sides optimise traditionalgrowth motivations of investment, export and consumption, and promote newdriving forces such as digital transformation, green transition, circulareconomy, knowledge-based economy and sharing economy on the foundation ofinnovation, science and technology. The two countries should also boost tourism and educationcooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges, he added.

The PM took this occasion to thank the Australian side for backing the Vietnamesecommunity in settling down in the host country, and providing COVID-19 vaccines toVietnam during the hardest time of the pandemic.

PM attends Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne ảnh 2Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attends the announcement of the opening of an air route linking Melbourne and Hanoi by Vietjet Air (Photo: VNA)
At the forum, PM Chinh witnessed the announcement of theopening of an air route linking Melbourne and Hanoi by Vietjet Air. Firstflights on the route are scheduled to operate on June 3 with two return flights perweek.

Vietjet is currently operating 58 flights per week betweenHo Chi Minh City of Vietnam and the five largest cities of Australia - Melbourne, Sydney,Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Within the forum’s framework, agencies and businesses of the two nations alsoexchanged many memoranda of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in variousfields, including aviation, education and training, offshore wind powerdevelopment, and high-tech agriculture.

Earlier the same day, PM Chinh cut the ribbon to inaugurate theAustralia - Vietnam Policy Institute at RMIT University, which aims to conductresearches on the strategic relations between Australia and Vietnam,contributing to effectively implementing Australia'a Southeast Asian Economic Strategy to2040.

PM Chinh expressed his belief that the institute’s activitiesin providing policy consultancy to the two governments will help deepen thebilateral relationship, making it more practical and effective across allfields for the growth of each country and people of both nations, and for peace, cooperationand development in the region and the world.

According to RMIT President Prof. Alec Cameron, through nearly 25 years ofoperations in Vietnam, the university has trained 20,000 Vietnamese students.

PM Chinh proposed that RMIT invest more in enhancing thequality of its infrastructure and making long-term investment in Vietnam, thuscontributing to promoting education-training cooperation between the twocountries./.
VNA

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