HCM City (VNA) – Vietnam and Luxembourg boast highpotential to collaborate in many areas, especially finance, logistics andsustainable development in adaptation to climate change, heard theVietnam-Luxembourg Business Forum held in Ho Chi Minh City on May 5.

Addressing the event, Luxembourg Prime Minister XavierBettel underlined that Vietnam is an important partner of Luxembourg in manyaspects, and one of the countries in which his country invests great resources topromote partnership with. Meanwhile, Luxembourg is an important partner and agateway for Vietnam to the EU, he said.

Vietnam is becoming one of the most dynamic economies in the region and theworld, he noted, holding that economy, trade and investment have always beenpromising and prioritised areas in the ties between the two countries.

The Luxemburg leader said that the forum is a good chancefor the business communities of both sides to exchange information andcontribute to the effective economic cooperation between the two countries inthe future.

For his part, Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen HongDien said that over the past 50 years, Vietnam and Luxembourg have enjoyedgrowing friendship and expanding trade and investment partnership.

Vietnam is the eighth largest trade partner of Luxembourgoutside the EU, while Luxembourg is Vietnam’s third largest EU investor. 

Two-way trade has tripled over the recent five years. In thefirst three months of this year, the figure increased 8.2% year on year evenamid the global economic downturn, he said, stressing that in the face of difficulties andchallenges ahead, Vietnam and Luxembourg should work more closely together,especially in trade and investment, thus enhancing the resilience of eacheconomy.

The two sides also boast high potential in beefing up their tradeties as the export product structures of the two countries can supplement eachother, which is a good condition for businesses of the two countries to buildand reinforce their partnership, especially in trading of products of eachother’s strengths and demands, said the minister.

According to him, Vietnam can export garments,leather and footwear, furniture, tropical farm produce, and aquatic products toLuxembourg and import chemicals, rubber, plastic products, steels, financial,banking and insurance services from the European country.

Highlighting partnership opportunities between the twobusiness communities, Vo Tan Thanh, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry (VCCI) said that as of March, Luxembourg had invested in61 projects in Vietnam with total capital of 2.6 billion USD, ranking third among24 EU member countries and 17 out of 139 countries and territories investing inVietnam.

He expressed hope that Luxembourg, with its strengths inservices, finance, banking towards green, digital and circular trends, willshare experience and cooperate with Vietnam in these fields.

According to Thanh, despite the impressive growth in tradeand investment cooperation between the two countries recently, it has yet tomatch the cooperation potential between the two countries that share many strategicsimilarities.

Thanh suggested that the two sides coordinate more closely in removing obstaclesand barriers hindering their trade relations, including speeding up theapproval of the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) and theremoval of the “yellow card” against Vietnam’s seafood products.

Businesses and investors of the two countries should also work harder toexplore each other’s market through official channels to seek partnershipopportunities, he said.

Tourism is also a promising cooperation area for the twosides, as Vietnam is in need of human resources training for tourism sector,Thanh added.

At the forum, the VCCI and the Luxembourg Chamber ofCommerce, and a number of businesses of the two countries signed theirmemorandum of understanding on their cooperation, paving the way for theexpansion of the economic, trade and investment partnership between Vietnam andLuxembourg in the future./.