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Jun 09, 2018 / 22:07

Vietnam PM touts Canadian firms

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc introduced potential chances for Canadian firms while making a remark at Vietnam-Canada business roundtable in Quebec on June 8 (Canada time).

The roundtable is part of activities the PM involved in during his trip to Canada to attend the Group of Seven (G7) Outreach Summit.
During the speech delivered at the forum, PM Phuc spoke highly of the stable and positive growth of two-way trade volume between Vietnam and Canada, reaching US$3.5 billion in 2017. As such, Canada is currently a large investor in Vietnam with accumulated investment totaling more than US$5.1 billion.

 
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc witnesses the signing ceremony of cooperative documents within the Roundtable. Photo: Thanhnien
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc witnesses the signing ceremony of cooperation documents within the Roundtable. Photo: Thanhnien

The PM also pressed that Vietnam considers Canada as an important partner, holding that the two economies can supplement each other without competition. Particularly, Vietnam has a strong agriculture sector and many industrial products, while Canada’s clean energy, pharmacy and grocery industries are highly valued across the world, he said.
In March this year, Vietnam and Canada signed and are undertaking procedures for the ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
“Given the signing of CPTPP in March, I believe Vietnam would soon welcome greater investment waves from Canada”, the Vietnamese leader added.
Earlier, PM Phuc highlighted some striking achievements of Vietnam’s economy during the past time. The country has recorded high economic growth, with trade revenue reaching US$425 billion, foreign direct investment (FDI) hitting US$37 billion in 2017, he noted.
Hence, Vietnam is gradually striving into a market with strong purchase power and average income of 93-million-population reaching around US$2,400 USD per capita.
In addition, large finance institutes, such as the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have just lifted the Vietnam economic growth’s forecasts in 2018 to 6.8% and 7.1%, respectively.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s competitiveness and business environment have basically improved. Foreign business associations including Eurocham, Jetro, AmCham, Cancham, Korcham, etc. see the country as a destination of their top priority among ASEAN countries.
In 2017, Vietnam ranked 68 out of 190 economies on the World Bank's Doing Business 2018 report (30 places up compared to 2012) while the World Economy Forum (WEF) rated Vietnam’s competitiveness at 55th out of 137 economies.  
Until now, Vietnam has lured nearly US$325 billion of FDI from 127 countries and partners. Among those, numerous multinational firms choose the country as their strategic manufacturing hubs to connect with global supply chains. In April 2017, Moody's changes the outlook on Vietnam's ratings to positive from stable, while Fitch has recently upgraded Vietnam`s long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) by one notch to BB from BB-.