Poland is the world's largest apple exporter. — Photo luontuoisach.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Poland's Ministry of Economy announced the launch of a "Made in Poland" campaign to enlarge the market share of Polish products at a conference held in Ha Noi yesterday.

Viet Nam and Poland are currently in the final stages of negotiations over a free trade agreement, expected to be signed later this year. Deputy Minister of Economy Grazyna Henclewska told the Tuesday's conference that Poland wanted to expand on some of their newer strengths, agricultural specialties and mining technology, in Viet Nam's market.

"Poland is the world's largest apple exporter," she told Viet Nam News, "but we export not only fresh apples, but also products made from apples like juice, jam and cosmetic beauty products."

Currently the bilateral trade is US$600 million in 2014, rising by 32 per cent over the previous year, according to Duong Hoang Minh, Deputy Chief of the Europe Markets Unit at the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

"If Poland enters the Vietnamese market," he added, "it will have access to a larger ASEAN market with more than 600 million people."

Henclewska said that Poland expected to enhance co-operation with Viet Nam in its fields of strength like mining, food, green technology and chemical industry.

At the conference, companies from the two countries pitched potential export products and spoke about technological solutions to their respective production issues.

Henclewska reviewed Poland's current stance as the sixth largest economy in Europe, and spoke about its interest in Southeast Asia as potential market for investment. Viet Nam, she said, had a lot of potential for co-operation.

At the conference, Polish manufacturing companies of post-harvest technology presented their products, something Vietnamese agricultural producers are looking for.

Due to a lack of post-harvest technology, Viet Nam fruit exports struggle to remain fresh. As the conference was taking place, thousands of container lorries were piling up on the national highway to export southern produced watermelons. Long lines under a relentless sun sent tonnes of these melons to the garbage dump.

"Viet Nam needs technology that will help preserve its farm produce so it can last longer for exports," Minh said.

Polish Ambassador Barbara Szymanowska drew attention to the fact that Poland was one of the first countries to enter into diplomatic relations with Viet Nam. This year marks the 65th anniversary of their diplomatic relations.

The two countries recounted their positive economic co-operation over the past few years. The ambassador added that there was still a lot of untapped potential that could allow businesses to expand co-operation and so believed that the conference would set the stage for long-term co-operation.

Working delegations from Viet Nam's Ministry of Industry and Trade will visit Poland next month and task forces from both sides are set to speed up the finalisation of the trade agreement. —VNS