Vietnam ready to support Russian companies operating on its market - Vietnamese president

HANOI, June 26. /TASS/. Trade and economic cooperation between Vietnam and Russia continues to develop dynamically in line with the existing bilateral agreements, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang said in an interview with TASS ahead of his official visit to Russia due to take place on June 28 through July 1. "Bilateral trade is demonstrating visible growth. In 2016, trade between our countries reached 2.7 billion U.S. dollars, having demonstrated a 25-percent growth on 2015. Since the beginning of the current year, trade has been steadily growing. Thus, in the first four months of the year, it went up by 30 percent to reach 1.1 billion U.S. dollars," he said. The Vietnamese leader said he hoped expansion of business cooperation to the sphere of joint car assembly and production in his country would give a fresh impetus to the development of economic cooperation between the two countries. "Vietnam is ready to support Russian companies willing to operate on the Vietnamese market and will offer them the most favorable conditions to encourage cooperation with local partners," he pledged. He also highly estimated Vietnamese-Russian cooperation in the fuel and energy sector. "Both countries are successfully implementing joint projects in the fuel and energy sector. I highly appraise efficient cooperation between Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) and Russia’s biggest oil and gas companies, such as Zarubezhneft, Gazprom and Rosneft, as well as the activities of our joint oil and gas ventures operating in our territories," Tran Dai Quang stressed. However, he noted, the two countries should exert joint efforts to boost the efficiency of cooperation in the oil and gas sector beyond oil and gas prospecting and production. "We need to expand cooperation in such sectors as petro-chemistry, construction of pipelines, long-term supplies of raw materials to oil refineries, production of gas-based fuels. Apart from that, we should look at possibilities for new energy-sector projects of increased economic profitability," the Vietnamese president said, adding he is sure the free trade zone agreement between his country and the Eurasian Economic Union that came into force in October 2016 would encourage further development of practical cooperation between Vietnam and Russia. "The implementation of the free trade agreement will be a driving force prompting further development of Vietnam’s trade relations with the Eurasian Economic Union and encouraging further growth of Vietnamese-Russian trade, which will make it possible for us to reach our targeted trade index of ten billion U.S. dollars a year by 2020," the Vietnamese leader added. Read more