Vietnam is actively improving its market economy institutions in order to accelerate the country’s international integration, according to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The PM was speaking during a dialogue in New York on September 27 with representatives of leading US economic groups Metlife, GE, IBM, AES, Warburg Pincus, Coca-Cola and Ford.

He emphasised again that the country wants to further promote cooperation with the US in all fields, especially economics, trade and investment.

The Vietnamese leader cited the growing investment in the country’s infrastructure development as one of its major breakthroughs and stressed that it now intends to achieve high-quality human resources development. He called on US investors to get involved in the resulting opportunities.

Vietnam and the US have agreed to lift their relations to a comprehensive cooperative partnership, he said, adding that the prospect of the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) will fuel trade and economic ties between the two countries.

He expressed his hope the newly established partnership and the upcoming trade deal will make the US the biggest trade partner and foreign investor in Vietnam.

The PM also assured the US participants of the Vietnamese Government’s commitment to continuously improving the business climate and facilitating foreign businesses to launch effective and long-term operations in the country.

During the dialogue, the Prime Minister answered questions relating to the Government’s immediate and long-term priorities and measures to maintain macro-economic stability, inflation control, economic restructuring and growth model reform.

He presented the country’s economic restructuring process, particularly focusing on reforms to State-owned enterprises, the banking system and bad debt settlements while explaining how Vietnam tries to become more economically competitive.

The PM said he wants US economic groups to support Vietnam’s request for an end to discrimination against its goods, especially tra fish.

The US is Vietnam’s leading trade partner with total two-way trade between them reaching 25 billion USD in 2012. The figure was 17 billion USD in the first seven months of this year and it is expected to amount to 30 billion USD by the end of the year.

The US is currently the seventh biggest foreign investor in Vietnam, running 660 projects with a total registered capital of 11 billion USD.-VNA