Vietnam and Russia agreed on Monday to almost triple their bilateral trade to $10 billion by 2020 from $3.55 billion last 12 months, while also expanding energy ties.
Russia is Vietnam’s largest arms supplier, and Russian firms are involved in several Vietnamese energy projects.
“We agreed to cooperate more closely and implement more effectively the free trade agreement that Vietnam signed with the Eurasian Economic Union (led by Russia),” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told reporters in Hanoi on Monday after meeting his Russian counterpart Dmitry. Medvedev.
Phuc said the 2 countries are keen to facilitate bilateral trade in agricultural and seafood products and can have resources to support joint energy investment projects.
“Russian and Vietnamese energy firms cooperate effectively and we would like to further strengthen these ties through measures to facilitate joint energy investment projects in Russia, Vietnam and third countries,” Medvedev said.
In the previous marketing season, Vietnam was the fourth largest buyer of Russian wheat after Egypt, Turkey and Bangladesh. Since the beginning of the present 2018/19 marketing season on July 1, this Southeast Asian country has imported 1.2 million tons of Russian wheat.
In mid-September, Russia’s food safety watchdog tightened qc on grain exports, citing complaints from Vietnam and a number of other other major buyers about falling crop standards.
Source : Reuters
