Bangkok (VNA) – The Vietnamese Embassy in Thailand considers economic diplomacy a main pillar among its tasks, together with politicaldiplomacy, cultural diplomacy and overseas Vietnamese affairs, Ambassador Phan Chi Thanh has said.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)'s correspondents in Thailand, Thanh said that the embassy is taking drastic measures to bringtwo-way trade to 25 billion USD by 2025 as set out by the two countries’leaders.

Thailand is Vietnam’s biggest trade partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with bilateral tradeturnover hitting 19.5 billion USD in 2021 and 10.6 billion USD in the firsthalf of this year. Thailand also ranks ninth among 140 nations and territories investing in Vietnam, with over 13 billion USD.

Thanh went on to say that with the motto of puttingbusinesses and localities at the centre of services of economic diplomacy, theembassy has carried out a lot of activities to strengthen bilateral economic cooperationbetween ministries, sectors, localities and enterprises. In July, it organisedforums connecting 40 Vietnamese-owned firms in Thailand with hundreds ofbusinesses from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang city, and Quang Nam, KienGiang and Bac Giang provinces.

In 2022 and 2023, the embassy has also implemented five maintasks of promoting economic linkages between the northeastern region ofThailand with Vietnam’s central region through Laos; promoting Thailand’s investmentand tourism in Phu Quoc island; boosting the export of agriculturalproducts to Thailand; speeding up the establishment of a Vietnam BusinessAssociation in Thailand; and carrying out corporate diplomacy in Thailand.

He stressed that promoting corporate diplomacy is ofimportant significance as almost all major Thai corporations are present inVietnam, with big investment projects.

However, Thanh stressed that Vietnam’s investment in Thailandhas to date reached 32 million USD – a quite modest figure compared to 13billion USD of Thailand.

In the time to come, the embassy will continue promotingVietnam’s business and investment environment and tourism to Thai enterprisesand people, attracting more high-quality investment of Thailand in the fieldsof renewable energy and hi-tech agriculture, and popularising investmentopportunities in Thailand to domestic localities and businesses to increaseVietnam’s investment in the country.

It will also focus on solving bottlenecks in economiccooperation, developing new tourism products, and accompanying and supportingthe two business communities, Thanh added./.