Hanoi (VNA) – Economicand trade ties between Vietnam and the Czech Republic (CZE) have maderemarkable progress in recent years, with the latter becoming a major tradepartner of Vietnam in Eastern Europe.

According to Ta Hoang Linh,director of the Europe-America market department under the Ministry of Industryand Trade, bilateral trade between Vietnam and CZE has been growing at 10percent a year over several past years. The growth accelerated to about 16percent in 2018, bringing two-way trade value to 298 million USD. Of thefigure, Vietnam’s exports to the CZE increased by 3.3 percent to nearly 156.5 millionUSD, while its imports from the CZE surged 32 percent year on year to nearly141.6 million USD.

However, in the first quarter of2019, two-way trade dropped by 12 percent year on year to over 64.6 millionUSD, due to a 27.6 percent decrease in imports from the CZE. Vietnam shipped tothe CZE over 35.76 million USD worth of products in the period, up 2.4 percent,and imported over 26.87 million USD.

Nguyen Khanh Ngoc, deputy director of the Europe-Americamarket department, said Vietnam’s exports to the CZE are mainly footwear,garment, seafood, consumer goods, computers and parts, mobile phones, and sometypes of equipment and machinery parts.

 The country’s typical farm produce such asfruit, rice, tea, rubber, pepper and cashew nut still account for a small sharein the Czech market, due to time-consuming import procedures, fast changes indemand and prices, Ngoc said, adding that another problem is the quality ofproducts.

Meanwhile, Vietnam buys from theCZE various kinds of machinery and parts, electronic components, chemicals,medicine, garment accessories, glass and crystal goods, and milk and dairy products.

 At the 6th meeting of theVietnam-CZE Inter-governmental Committee in Hanoi last year, the two sidesaffirmed their intention to strengthen diplomatic relations and developeconomic, trade and investment ties for mutual interest.

Also at the meeting, the twosides set up a working group on cooperation on mineral mining and processingand energy.

It is noteworthy that the CZE listed Vietnamamong its 12 key markets in foreign trade during 2012-2020, the only ASEANcountry in the list.

The CZE is pursuing a marketopening policy and promoting trade liberalization and market opening, which isexpected to facilitate Vietnam’s export to the country.

Besides, the EU-Vietnam FreeTrade Agreement, once it is approved, is sure to give a boon to Vietnam’sexport to the CZE.

At the same time, Vietnam’sgoods will face competition in the Czech market, trade officials said, recommendingthat Vietnamese exporters should try to enter the supply chains of big retailsystems in the CZE.-VNA