To create opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to update information on Thailand's market and to meet Thai enterprises, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam (VCCI), in collaboration with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), recently organised a conference on opportunities of doing business with Thai enterprises. The conference was attended by a large number of Vietnamese businesses and Thai enterprises in the fields of computers, ceramics, chemicals, cement, petrochemicals, food and beverage, household appliances, pharmaceuticals, machine and industrial equipment.
According to Pham Thi Thu Hang, VCCI General Secretary, in 1976 Vietnam and Thailand established diplomatic relations, which is a very important milestone in the relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. Since then, the multi-faceted relations, specifically in trade and investment, between the two countries have developed rapidly and positively. By June 2013, Vietnam and Thailand officially raised their relations to the strategic partnership level. Ms Hang affirmed that Vietnam - Thailand relations get even more meaningful in the context of ASEAN cooperation towards the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. The AEC will be a single market and a unified production space. The ASEAN market will promote the common advantages of the region to gradually build a dynamic and highly competitive region in the world, bringing prosperity to the peoples of ASEAN nations.
According to statistics, the annual trade turnover between Vietnam and Thailand has made constant strides; export increased from US$5.78 billion in 2009 to nearly US$6.8 billion in 2010. By 2013, the trade turnover between the two countries had reached more than US$90.4 billion.
Thailand is the largest import partner of Vietnam in terms of telephone and spare parts. In 2013, Thailand imported more than US$692 million of phones and spare parts from Vietnam, accounting for a large share of Vietnam's total exports of nearly US$21.5 billion of phones and spare parts to the world market. Ranking second in export turnover of Vietnam to Thailand are iron and steel products, with over US$221 million in 2013, an increase of nearly 25 percent over the same period last year.
During the past years, Vietnam has imported a lot of industrial products of Thailand. According to statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in 2013, Vietnam imported US$494 million of automotive parts and components from Thailand (up 38 percent compared to 2012). In addition, Thailand is also a supplier of many important industrial commodities of Vietnam such as household electrical goods worth US$485 million, motorcycle spare parts worth US$198 million, and paper of all types worth US$194 million.
Regarding foreign direct investment, Thailand is Vietnam's important partner. So far, Thailand has 365 projects with the total capital of up to US$6.63 billion, ranking 10th among 100 countries and territories investing in Vietnam and the 3rd among the ASEAN countries having investment in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Vietnam has 8 projects in Thailand with investment capital of more than US$9 million.
"The rapid and stable growth of trade and investment in recent years shows that the two economies have complementary advantages and the two business communities can work together to grow," Ms Hang confirmed.
Along with the development of the Vietnam - Thailand relations, many Thai companies have been cooperating very successfully with Vietnamese ones such as Amata Group investing an industrial zone in Dong Nai; Siam Cement Group investing in the fields of plastic, packaging and chemicals, and other prominent firms such as CP Co., Ltd in Vietnam with a total capital of US$328 million. Metro Vietnam was recently sold to Berli Jucker Group of Thailand for over 650 million euros.
According to Ms Hang, there are still many new areas and new opportunities opening up to the two business communities and VCCI is willing to accompany business promotion organisations of Thailand for the development of partnerships between the business communities of the two countries.
Mr Dang Xuan Quang, Deputy Director of Foreign Investment Agency, Ministry of Planning and Investment, shared that investment trends of investors in Thailand are consistent with the economic development plan of Vietnam. Particularly, 84 percent of investment goes to the processing and manufacturing industry.
Mr Quang said that Vietnam has 4 fields where it wants to capture Thailand's attention. Particularly, they are infrastructure construction, development of high quality human resources, development of supporting industries in Vietnam (Thailand has strong potential in supporting industries, so it can help develop Vietnam's supporting industries), and agriculture and processing industry (Thailand has strengths in agriculture while investment in agriculture accounts for 7 percent, thus this is a promising area to increase cooperation).
Quynh Chi
Vietnamese
