PM busy on sidelines of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (second from right) and WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab witness the signing of  an agreement between the Viet Nam and the WEF on building a center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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Both sides also signed a Letter of Intent on developing initiatives for plastic waste treatment.

The same day, he had a series of bilateral meetings with foreign leaders and attended a high-level dialogue.

Meeting with Dutch Queen Maxima, who is the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, PM Phuc affirmed that Viet Nam is focusing on building a national strategy on inclusive finance, which serves as an important foundation for the country to realise the UN’s inclusive finance goals in particular, and socio-economic and sustainable development targets as a whole.

He took the occasion to invite the Dutch King and Queen to visit Viet Nam.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) meets with Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Carrie Lam

Talking with Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Carrie Lam, Phuc said that as Hong Kong is an important economic partner of Viet Nam, both sides should enhance exchanges and meetings.

Viet Nam is willing to create favourable conditions for enterprises from Hong Kong to expand investment in the country, especially in the fields of transport, infrastructure development, electronics, supporting industry, processing, finance and banking, he said, hoping that Hong Kong firms will actively participate in the equitisation process of the state-owned enterprises.

Speaking highly of the Hong Kong administration’s decision to exempt visas for Vietnamese diplomatic and official passport holders, Phuc asked the administration to ease visa requirements for Vietnamese people who come to study, work and run business in Hong Kong.

Receiving European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen, Phuc highly appreciated the active growth of the Viet Nam-European Union (EU) relations with deeper mutual understanding and trust.

The EU is currently the fourth largest trade partner and the second largest export market of Viet Nam, the PM said, asking the EU to step up efforts so that the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) could be signed and ratified in the first quarter of 2019, thus meeting mutual benefits and creating a new momentum for the bilateral relations, especially economic ties.

He called on the EU to support Viet Nam in dealing with the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and soon remove yellow card against Viet Nam’s seafood exports to the EU.

Meeting with Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall, Phuc affirmed that Viet Nam always attaches great importance to developing relations with traditional friendly countries in the East-Central Europe.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall

                                                                                                                             
The PM congratulated Romania on taking over the EU Presidency in the first six months of 2019. He asked the country to push for the early signing and ratification of the EVFTA.

The two sides agreed to deepen the bilateral relations and effectively implement cooperation agreements, including signing a Protocol revising the agreement on double taxation avoidance, an agreement on cooperation in crime prevention and combat, a cultural cooperation programme in 2019-2021, and a tourism cooperation agreement.

They also agreed to organize the meeting of the inter-governmental committee on cooperation in economy and science-technology in 2019.

During his talks with Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Angel Gurria, Phuc welcomed the organization’s coordination in building a national multidimensional review report for Viet Nam, while urging the completion of the report in 2019 to serve the master review of the implementation of Viet Nam’s socio-economic development strategy in 2011-2020 and the building of a development strategy for 2021-2030.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Angel Gurria

On this occasion, the PM had a number of meetings with leaders of major business giants in the world such as Siemens, Qualcomm, Google, Total, Allianz, JBIC, GE, Prudential.

Phuc affirmed Viet Nam’s commitment to unceasingly address existing limitations, create a favorable business climate, and work closely with the business community to remove barriers to beef up innovation and creativity.

By Vien Nhu