Vietnam and Malaysia will build an information exchange and
cooperation institution to investigate trade protection cases to support
and protect the rights of the two countries’ businesses.
Vietnamese Minister of Trade and Industry Vu Huy Hoang and Malaysian
Minister of International Trade and Industry Dato’Sri Mustapa Mohamed
came to the agreement during a Vietnam-Malaysia Joint Trade Committee
meeting.
This meeting, the committee’s second, was
held on the margins of the 19th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Retreat in
Hanoi on March 7.
Hoang said that cooperation in
trade and economics was discussed during the meeting to promote and
utilise mutual potential.
The two sides realised
the importance of trade policies and discussed cooperation in
investment, trade, industry and agriculture, as well as publicising
business regulations, especially in the context that the two economies
are joining force to build an ASEAN economic community by 2015.
Hoang stressed that the bilateral relationship has matured since the
first meeting of the Vietnam-Malaysia Joint Trade Committee in
September, 2011.
Bilateral political relations were
marked by high-ranking visits, including President Truong Tan Sang’s
trip to Malaysia in September 2011, and the meeting between Prime
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Malaysian counterpart on the margins of
the 21st ASEAN Summit in Cambodia last November.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam-Malaysia diplomatic
ties, the two countries have also organised minister-level visits this
year, with a total of 13 agreements in trade, investment, science and
technology, and telecommunications signed.
Accordingly, bilateral trade turnover from 2009 to 2012 grew by 24 percent each year, up to 7.9 billion USD in 2012.
In 2012, Malaysia ranked 8th of 92 countries and territories and
the 2nd of the Southeast Asian nations with FDI in Vietnam – 428
projects worth a total of 10.1 billion USD.
Last
year, Vietnam exported goods valued at 4.5 billion USD to Malaysia, a
year on year increase of 56 percent, and imported 3.4 billion USD of
goods from the country.-VNA