More than 40 businesses from HCM City are showcasing their products at a trade fair in Germany.

They include farm produce, handicrafts, food, leather and footwear.

The Leipzig Trade Fair is being held in the east German city of Leipzig.

In his speech at the event’s opening ceremony on Saturday, Sachsen-Anhalt state Governor Reiner Haselhoff praised relations between Germany and Viet Nam and the two cities in particular.

Over the past year, HCM City and Leigpzig have co-operated in areas such as training, nursing, vocational training, clean water, electricity and energy.

Other German delegates who attended the ceremony agreed that Viet Nam - as the main partner of the fair - will enhance its economic links with Germany in many fields.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Germany Nguyen Minh Vu said Viet Nam’s participation in the event would help stregthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

The Leipzig Trade Fair, which will run until March 3, is one of the biggest and most successful consumer fairs in Germany, attracting around 1,000 firms from 20 countries and territories this year.

Germany is regarded as a top trade partner of Viet Nam in the EU. Two-way trade reached more than US$10 billion in 2018, $1 billion higher than a year ago.

As of last year, Germany had 318 projects, worth $1.94 billion, in Viet Nam, ranking eighteenth among 130 countries and territories investing in the country.

Last year alone, German businesses also pumped approximately $400 million in the Southeast Asian nation, statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency showed. — VNS