How to promote investment and trade in the Russian market was the main
focus of a conference in Ho Chi Minh City on August 29.
The
event was organised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) in
conjunction with the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam
and the municipal People’s Committee.
Participants held that Russia , with a population of more than 140 million, is an important market of Vietnam .
According
to Tran Chi Tam, former Vietnamese Commercial Counsellor in Russia ,
the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Vietnam and the
Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan , which is
scheduled for t he end of this year, will create conditions for
Vietnamese enterprises to fully tap the Russian market.
When the
FTA is signed, Vietnamese firms will have good opportunities to
increase their imports and exports to the market, while easily expanding
their investment and production in the country, he added.
Two-way
trade between Vietnam and the Customs Union’s members is
likely to hit 12 billion USD by 2018 once the agreement takes effect,
said Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai.
Tran
Ngoc Quan from the European Market Department under the MoIT said that
Russian firms are interested in several fields in Vietnam such as
oil and gas exploitation, mineral, transport infrastructure
construction, remote sensing, and automobile assembling and agriculture.
Vietnamese businesses also plan to develop goods distribution
centres and construction material industry in Russia , he noted.
According
to the MoIT, by June 2014, Vietnam had invested 2.47 billion USD in 17
projects in Russia while the European nation now runs 101 FDI projects
in Vietnam with a total registered capital of over 2 billion USD,
ranking eighth among foreign investors in the country.-VNA