Vietnam, with a young population and increasingly wealthy and growing
middle class, was a potential market of 90-million customers, said
Thomas Loidl, Austrian Ambassador to Vietnam during a Austria-Vietnam
business meeting in Hanoi on September 29.
Thirteen Austrian
energy and environmental companies attended the meeting to learn more
about the market and seek potential partners.
Economic and trade
cooperation between the two countries have grown considerably in recent
years. Two-way trade rose from 175 million USD in 2007 to 1.3 billion
USD in 2012 – and 2.1 billion USD in 2013.
However, the results
were considered low compared with the potential, said Doan Duy Khuong,
Vice-Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
He
said Vietnam would be a gateway for Austrian companies to access the
wider ASEAN market, particularly when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
comes into being next year.
Therefore, the market could grow from Vietnam’s 90 million to a total of about 600 million in ASEAN, Khuong added.
He
said the Vietnamese Government was trying to complete the country’s
legal regulatory framework and develop better market mechanisms to
create favorable condition for companies to come to Vietnam, including
Austria.
The business meeting is held by the VCCI, the Austrian
Embassy and Advantage Austria in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city every year
to create good conditions for Vietnamese and Austrian companies to
develop trade.
Khuong said that the VCCI was willing to cooperate with trade promotion agencies in other countries to organise similar events.-VNA