London (VNA) – The UK always considers Vietnam as its important and potential trade partner and wants to expand multifaceted cooperation with the Southeast Asian nation, said British Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox.
At a meeting with Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, who paid a working visit to the UK from December 4-5, Fox reasserted the British Government’s commitment to further boosting trade ties with Vietnam.
The two countries should take new measures and initiatives to foster bilateral trade cooperation, he said.
For his part, Anh affirmed that Vietnam has attached great importance to the multifaceted strategic partnership with the UK, and has been making every effort to promote bilateral cooperation.
Solutions and initiatives should focus on sharing information about import policies, trade barriers and management of fake goods management as well as increasing trade promotion and market studying activities, thus facilitating two-way trade, he stressed.
The minister proposed the UK create favourable conditions for prestigious Vietnamese exporters to join distribution networks in the UK, especially for ago-aquatic products, textiles-garments and footwear.
Vietnam highly evaluates the dialogue mechanism of the Vietnam-UK Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO), considering this as a useful channel to regularly exchange measures and solutions to remove difficulties facing enterprises.
The upcoming 10th session of JETCO is scheduled to take place in the UK in the first quarter of 2018, focusing on ways to encourage the participation of businesses in JETCO and to enhance cooperation among localities of the two countries.
Economic and trade relations between Vietnam and the UK have been developing fruitfully in recent years, with two-way trade hitting 5.62 billion USD in 2016, up 4.3 percent year-on-year. The UK is now the third largest trade partner of Vietnam in Europe after Germany and the Netherlands.-VNA
VNA