Viet Nam and Poland both grow a lot of agricultural products, but they are complementary to each other, offering them the opportunity to tie up, a bilateral business matching heard in HCM City on February 24.

Nguyen Huu Nam, deputy director of the VCCI in HCM City, said: “Poland has high demand for Vietnamese products such as rice, basa fish, shrimp, mango, pineapple, passion fruit, coffee, and cashew, while Poland is capable of supplying Viet Nam with various EU-standard fresh and processed foods and fruits, beef, lamb, pork and others.”

Their trade and investment relations have made solid progress, but are still not commensurate with their traditional friendship and potential, partly due to the lack of information about each other's markets, he said.

Alexander Nowakowski, second secretary of Economic Affairs at the Polish embassy in Viet Nam, speaking at a press briefing held before the meeting, said after COVID many business delegations have come to each other markets to seek co-operation opportunities.

The EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement has also helped boost trade ties between the two countries.

Poland’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Lech Kołakowski told the press briefing that his country is one of largest producers of food products such as pork, beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products in Europe, and exports them to more than 200 markets.

“Poland’s foods not only have high quality, but are also are absolutely safe.”

The Government of Poland is paying great attention to expanding export portfolios to Viet Nam, he said, adding that his ministry is now working with its Vietnamese counterpart for finalising procedures to allow Polish exporters of beef, goose and duck access to the Southeast Asian country.

He hoped that beef, duck, goose meat from his country would soon be available in Viet Nam.

At a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Ha Noi on February 23, he asked that Viet Nam should also open up Polish barley and wheat, he said.

He said the agricultural products of the two countries do not compete with each other.

Viet Nam could become an important destination for the distribution of Polish agri-food products to the Asian region, and Poland is ready to do the same for Vietnamese products headed Europe, he said.

Executives from 70 Vietnamese food companies and eight Polish companies met and exchanged information to seek business opportunities at the business matching. — VNS