Vietnam, Saudi Arabia seeks food, energy security programmes

The second meeting of the Vietnam-Saudi Arabia Joint Committee on Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation opened on March 25 in Hanoi, with agenda focusing on joint programmes to ensure food and energy security.
The second meeting of the Vietnam-Saudi Arabia Joint Committee onEconomic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation opened on March 25 inHanoi, with agenda focusing on joint programmes to ensure food andenergy security.

According to Deputy Minister ofIndustry and Trade Le Duong Quang, who headed the Vietnamese team at thecommittee, the two countries will drive their future coordination insuch areas as agriculture and oil and gas.

Meanwhile, the two sides will also exert more efforts to realise theagreements reached during this meeting. They will work to speed up thenegotiations for a number of agreements, including those on visaexemption for state officials and diplomats, investment encouragementand protection and affiliation between the two foreign ministries andtwo central banks.

Vietnam and Saudi Arabiaalso pledged to work harder for the prompt signing of an aviationtransportation agreement, he added.

During themeeting, the two sides reviewed the partnership between the twocountries since the first meeting, while discussing practical measuresto boost partnership in various areas, including trade, industry,banking, investment, transport and communications.

Ahmed H. Salah, Deputy Minister of Economics-Planning, leader of theSaudi Arabian delegation, noted that strong growth has been seen in thebilateral cooperation since the previous sitting, emphasising that thereis room for them to further their ties in other promising areas ofstrength.

According to statistics from theVietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, two-way trade betweenVietnam and Saudi Arabia has grown rapidly, hitting 1.71 billionUSD in 2013 from 1.04 billion USD from 2011.

Lastyear alone, Vietnam ’s exports to Saudi Arabia reached 471.4million USD, with major currency earners being agricultural products,seafood, rice and apparel.

Meanwhile, it imported 1.2 billion USD worth of goods from the Middle East country.

Deputy Minister Quang also presented a number of proposals to beef upcooperation between the two countries, including the increase ofdelegation exchanges and trade promotions.

He alsosuggested that Saudi Arabia continue realising the agreement on oiland gas and mining partnership, while creating more favourableconditions for the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group to expand its affiliationwith Saudi Arabian partners.

Saudi Arabia should also encourage its businesses to invest more in Vietnam , he added, especially in agriculture.

Sharing Quang’s ideas, Ahmed H. Salah held that more efforts should be made to specify joint cooperation plans in the future.-VNA

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