Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet wrapped up his first tour to Belarus, Switzerland and Finland May 22 with a series of signed cooperative agreements and contracts in the fields of trade and investment.
During his stay in Belarus May 13-16 and Finland May 19-22, Triet and the hosts agreed to soon set up bilateral free trade agreements in order to further facilitate economic and trade ties.
While visiting Switzerland from May 16-19, the Vietnamese president also witnessed the launching of a joint feasibility study group on a bilateral free trade agreement between the Southeast Asian country and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)’s members of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Trade between Vietnam and Switzerland stood at US$2.6 billion in 2009. However, the Vietnam-Finland trade remained modest with only US$250 million last year.
Trade between Vietnam and Belarus hit merely US$35.9 million in the first four months of 2010.
Regarding the investment aspect, Swiss and Finnish investors showed their interest in huge infrastructure projects in Vietnam, including highways, airports, ports, electric plants.
Presidents of Switzerland and Finland both pledged to continue providing ODA for Vietnam, with a focus on the fields of public-private partnership (PPP) form, administrative reform and application of clean technologies.
Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Cuong, who accompanied president Triet during the ten-day trip, said Vietnam and the three European countries have various potentials to complement each other.
Belarus has potentials of industry, agriculture, science and education while Switzerland and Finland are well-known as nations of banking and financial services and tourism, the Vietnam News Agency cited Cuong as saying.
Vietnam meanwhile owns a plentiful source of young laborers and huge consumption demand.
Besides the economic cooperation, President Triet and state leaders of the three nations also agreed to maintain the annual exchange of high-ranking delegations and beef up further the bilateral cooperation in education, culture, sports. (News, www.chinhphu.vn)
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