Vietnam and Singapore Strengthening Cooperation in Trade and Investment

Vietnam and Singapore still have plenty of room for further development in trade cooperation, on the basis of their strategic partnership.

At the 13th Vietnam-Singapore Connectivity Ministerial Meeting in Hanoi recently, Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said Singapore was now among the most important trade and investment partners of Vietnam in Asia and Southeast Asia. This meeting is a precious time for both sides to focus on bilateral investment, focusing on a number of areas such as education, information and communication, transportation, finance – banking and travel services.

At the meeting, the two sides also re-evaluated the implementation of cooperation agreements in six areas in Vietnam-Singapore connectivity, including: investment; finance; information and communications technology; education and training; transportation and commerce and services. In particular, trade and investment cooperation has achieved positive results.

Accordingly, Vietnam - Singapore trade relations have been growing steadily with the average growth rate of 12 percent a year. Singapore has become Vietnam's second largest trading partner in ASEAN (after Thailand) and Vietnam's sixth largest trading partner. Vietnam has also risen to become Singapore's 11th largest trading partner in the world, ranking 13th last year.

The statistics from the Foreign Investment Agency, the Ministry of Planning and Investment show that in the first seven months of 2017, Vietnam-Singapore two-way trade reached US$5 billion, up 16.4 percent over the same period last year, of which, exports to Singapore reached US$1.7 billion, up 28.9 percent over the same period, and imports from Singapore reached US$3.3 billion, up 10.6 percent over the same period last year. In terms of investment, Singapore has 1,918 effective investment projects with a total registered capital of more than US$41.38 billion, ranking third among 122 countries and territories investing in Vietnam after Korea and Japan. Singapore's average registered investment capital is about US$21.6 million per project, higher than the average for a foreign investment in Vietnam, which is US$ 12.9 million.

In the first eight months of this year, Singapore had US$3.93 billion of registered capital in Vietnam; of which US$2.84 billion was new registered capital, US$718 million additional registered capital and US$370 million of shared capital. The biggest project is Nam Dinh 2 Thermal Power Plant invested by Teobwang Group, South Korea and Acwa Power, Saudi Arabia through two legal entities in Singapore with total investment capital of US$2.07 billion.

Vietnam has 93 investment projects in Singapore with a total capital of US$235 million, ranking 12th among 72 countries and territories with investment projects there. The projects focus on oil and gas, mining, retail, services, information technology and logistics.

Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang affirmed that Vietnam is an important trading and investment partner with an attractive competitive environment for Singaporean businesses. The most obvious evidence of this relationship is the growing development of Vietnam - Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIP), which are invested in Singapore. VSIP Group has developed a total of 8 projects nationwide with a total land area of over 8,400 hectares including industrial, urban and service land. The VSIP projects have attracted more than 720 investors from 30 countries and territories with a total investment capital at home and abroad of about US$10 billion with a total export value of US$32 billion, generating 200,000 jobs.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang also said that the results of the meeting will be reported to the Prime Minister of Singapore. Singapore is keen to welcome Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung to attend the 14th Vietnam-Singapore Ministerial Meeting on Economic Integration scheduled for next year in Singapore.

Anh Phuong