Dr Vu Tien Loc, President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), recently hosted a meeting with Gholam Reza Soleimani Amiri, President of Ghadir Investment Group (Iran), at the VCCI Head Office in Hanoi. The meeting was expected to promote business cooperation between the two countries. Specially, Iranian businesses expressed their wish to cooperate with Vietnamese partners in oil and gas, petrochemical, steel, cement and asphalt industries.
Gholam Reza Soleimani Amiri said, with its huge oil, gas and petrochemical reserves, Iran can ensure sufficient supply for the Southeast Asian market. As Iran is currently exporting these products to Vietnam via third countries, he thus hoped that businesses of the two countries will join hands in order to reduce costs. Ghadir is a big Iran-based group with a lot of contributions to the country’s development of industry, trade and service. The group has seven companies engaged in oil and gas, petrochemical, construction, industry, mining and transport. The group also expected to cooperate with Vietnamese partners in steel-making, cement and asphalt production.
For his part, VCCI President Vu Tien Loc affirmed that VCCI will help them to connect with Vietnamese enterprises operating in these fields and introduce specific projects for the two sides to advance direct cooperation.
However, he noted that asphalt production in Iran and Vietnam is different because of different climates in two countries. For that reason, Iranian asphalt is not very highly effective when it is used in Vietnam. He expressed hopes that the two sides will work out suitable formulas for Vietnam.
Vietnam and Iran established diplomatic relations on August 4, 1973. Bilateral relations have developed well over the years. The two sides signed the Agreement on Economic, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Cooperation (1993), the Trade Agreement (including MFN clauses), the Agreement on Establishment of Joint Commission Committee (1994), the Agreement on Cultural Cooperation (1999), the Sea Transport Agreement (2002), and Memorandum of Understanding on Expansion and Diversification of Economic and Commercial Cooperation in 2007.
In 2014, the two-way trade turnover totalled US$130.64 million. In the past years, Iranian companies want have worked to strengthen cooperation with Vietnam in industry, construction, transportation, oil and gas, cement, fertiliser, rubber planting and processing and tea and to boost trade with Vietnam. Iran needs to import rice (meeting Iran standards), tea, coffee, pepper, rubber, apparel, footwear, motorcycle and bicycle parts from Vietnam. Meanwhile, Vietnam can import asphalt, copper and chemicals of competitive prices and reasonable quality from Iran.
Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) signed a contract on deployment of exploration project in Danan Block with a total investment capital amounting to over US$115 million, a memorandum of understanding on a US$1 billion production project. However, due to emerging difficulties, PetroVietnam was approved by Iran for rescheduling the project progress in Danan Block by one year (August 2012 - August 2013). The group is asking for rescheduling/suspension of the project.
In October 2014, VCCI signed a cooperation agreement with the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines in Tehran during the Iran visit by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. VCCI also signed a cooperation agreement the Abadan Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture during this visit.
Anh Mai
Vietnamese
