WEF dialogue reflects global firms’ trust in Vietnamese economy: official

WEF President Borge Brende (first, left), WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab (centre), and PM Pham Minh Chinh co-chair the dialogue on October 29 (Photo: VNA)

The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Country Strategy Dialogue on Vietnam, held on late October 29, came to a success, demonstrating the WEF and global enterprises’ attention to and trust in the Vietnamese economy, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu has said.

In an interview granted to the press, Vu elaborated that the WEF’s first-ever Country Strategy Dialogue on Vietnam gathered WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab, President of the forum Borge Brende, and nearly 70 leading enterprises and investors who have invested or are planning to invest in the country.

Leading enterprises in the region and the world highlighted the prospect of and their trust in the investment and business climate in Vietnam. They also straightforwardly pointed out the difficulties and problems facing them while operating here and put forth proposals to help the country quickly recover its economy and realise long-term targets, Vu said.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh repeated to businesses his message of “harmonising interests, sharing risks” and “win-win cooperation” between the Government and the business community in the current context.

Particularly, he underlined the Vietnamese Government’s commitment and resolve to make reforms, transform the economy, and create new opportunities for the sustainable, inclusive, and innovative development of the Vietnamese economy and domestic and foreign enterprises.

Besides, the open and straightforward dialogue reflected enterprises and investors’ trust in the Vietnamese economy, as well as the business and investment prospect here. It also showed their trust in the Government’s unceasing efforts to reform and improve the business environment so as to promote the public - private partnership between international enterprises and the Vietnamese Government and people, Vu noted.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu (Photo: VNA)

He expressed his belief that this trust will lead to new investment and investment expansion decisions in mutually beneficial areas in the country.

Many participants, including the WEF leaders and major groups, spoke highly of the Government’s resolution which identified the right direction of shifting to the production and business recovery period with the pandemic under control, enabling them to restore normal operations.

They held that the recent difficulties they have faced in Vietnam just lasted for a short period of time while the country’s prospect and advantages are still outstanding. Vietnam has a critically important geo-economic position in a dynamic economic region, it is an economy with a large market of nearly 100 million people and also part of the network of regional and global free trade agreements, and it also boasts numerous advantages for attracting and keeping foreign investors, according to the Deputy Minister.

He cited the WEF and business leaders as saying that the difficulties and challenges are common, but the Vietnamese Government has displayed an open-minded attitude and readiness to accompany enterprises in tackling difficulties and challenges, thereby helping enhance investors’ trust.

The international business community made highly positive assessment of Vietnam’s economic outlook, which will open up a number of new chances for cooperation between the country and foreign enterprises in the time ahead, the official added./.