Vietnam, Turkey advised to provide motivation in trade and investment

National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan delivers a speech at the forum

In her remarks, the top Vietnamese legislator hailed remarkable improvement in Vietnam’s investment and business environment, citing the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness ranking in 2017 in which Vietnam jumped five places to 55th position among 137 countries. The country also leaped 14 spots on the World Bank’s Doing Business Report in 2016 to the 68th position out of 190 economies.

Over the last 40 years, the friendship and cooperation between the two countries have made great strides, particularly in trade and investment. Since the both sides established trade ties in August 1997, their partnership has grown steadily.

Vietnam is becoming a strategic production hub for many international firms in the region as a result of to the country’s incentive policies and the friendliness of the investment environment, Ngan said.

From only several hundreds of thousands of US dollars in the 1990s, two-way trade hit US$2 billion in 2017. In the Middle-East region, Turkey is the biggest non-oil partner of Vietnam.

In respective of investment, by the end of August 2018, Turkey had 18 investment projects in Vietnam with a total registered investment of US$708.2 million, ranking 26th out of 126 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

Businesses from both nations sign cooperation documents

However, Ngan said the figures are still below the cooperation potential and expectations of both sides, while expressing hope that the two sides will seek effective measures to fully tap the strengths of each country.

In his opening speech at the Forum, Chairman of the Turkey-Vietnam Business Council Ali Tezolmez highlighted the great significance of the event for both nations, saying it has provided an opportune occasion for Turkish investors to grasp business opportunities in the time to come.

Head of Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK) Nail Olpak said that both Vietnam and Turkey are facing challenges as a result of the trade wars, requiring businesses to step up collaboration and make the most of business opportunities.

In the framework of the forum, both countries' businesses signed a number of important cooperation documents, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation between Military Bank Securities (MBS) and GIH Investment Group, a MoU between the Joint stock VPMilk Company and EGERES Group on the development of wind power projects in Da Lat City.