As the world is coming to terms with the aftermath of the global economic crisis, Poland and Vietnam both have numerous opportunities to boost cooperation and investment, particularly in shipbuilding and mining, said a Polish official.

The Polish Economic Ministry’s State Secretary Adam Szejnfeld said so at a meeting with senior officials from the Industry and Trade Ministry in Hanoi on June 16.

Adam Szejnfeld, who led a Polish business delegation to Vietnam to seek out business opportunities, informed his Vietnamese colleagues that Poland would provide a soft loan of 280 million USD to support joint projects in shipbuilding and mining.

“We hope that these projects will be operational by next year, when Poland and Vietnam celebrate 60 years of diplomatic ties,” said Adam Szejnfeld.

The Polish official also mentioned other fields of cooperation in the near future, including environmental protection, the chemical industry and energy.

Deputy Minister Le Danh Vinh stressed that Vietnam wishes to cooperate with Polish businesses in the oil and gas, food processing, education and training sectors.

During their visit, from June 15-16, the delegation, with representatives from 13 Polish firms met with Vietnamese enterprises in the shipbuilding and mining industries as well as providers of vocational training for the shipbuilding sector.

According to Adam Szejnfeld, two-way trade between Poland and Vietnam has seen a strong growth in the past few years.

In 2008, the figure was 640 million USD, 500 million USD more than the target set by both governments for 2010.

Vietnam exports garments and textiles, leather footwear, farm produce and imports machinery and materials for shipbuilding./.