He expressed his belief that Vietnamese and Singaporean leaders will discuss new forms of investment and business opportunities on the occasion of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s visit to Vietnam from March 21-24.Minh hailed the growing ties between Vietnam and Singapore over the past years, with two-way trade nearing 20 billion SGD and Singapore becoming Vietnam’s sixth largest trade partner in the world and the second largest in ASEAN. Vietnam, for its part, is also the 12th largest trade partner of Singapore.
Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Nguyen Tien Minh
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In investment, Singapore is the third largest investor in Vietnam, behind Japan and the Republic of Korea, with a total registered capital of US$40 billion.
During the four-day visit, PM Lee is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to seek to boost bilateral cooperation, as well as meet other high-ranking Vietnamese leaders. He will also meet the Singaporean business community operating in Vietnam and attend the opening of a Business Centre in Ho Chi Minh City by Mapletree – a leading real estate development, investment and capital management company headquartered in Singapore.
Minh commented that the two nations have seen important progresses in their ties. Following the 50th anniversary of Independence (August 9, 2015), the Singaporean government pressed on with mapping out a strategy on how to write another success story for the next 50 years.
In such context, the island state has come up with a number of measures to further step up investment as well as expand its business presence abroad, he said.
According to him, Singaporean scholars and economists forecast that the Vietnamese economy would progress strongly in the region in the near future. Therefore, PM Lee’s visit is crucial to lay a foundation to further reinforcing bilateral links.
Over the past years, Singapore’s business ventures in Vietnam have been successful, notably the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) available in cities and provinces from the north to the south.
Singapore is Vietnam’s third largest foreign investor, with a total investment of over 38 billion USD poured into 1,600 projects in terms of processing, technology, production, real estate, construction, transport and logistics.
The country is also the 12th biggest trade partner of Vietnam, with two-way trade doubling in the last decade, hitting nearly 16 billion USD in 2016. Recent high-ranking visits of the two countries’ leaders helped lift the bilateral ties, promising to open many new opportunities for the two sides’ enterprises to foster trade and investment links.
The upcoming visit to Vietnam by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in late March is expected to promote all-around ties between the two countries, especially in people-to-people exchange.
