Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính and President of the Philippines Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. co-chaired a meeting with businesses from the two countries on Tuesday during the Philippine President's State visit to Việt Nam.

PM Chính described the fruitful Việt Nam - Philippines relations as an important foundation that creates motivation and confidence for enterprises from both countries to expand investment and business as well as promoting trade and investment cooperation.

Bilateral economic, trade and investment ties have lagged behind the two countries’ sound political relations, he pointed out, suggesting they work together to renew the existing cooperation locomotives in the areas of investment, trade and consumption while developing new connections in digital transformation, green transition and climate change response, as well as boosting collaboration in the fields on strength and demand.

Recognising the complementary factors of the two economies, the PM highlighted that Việt Nam and the Philippines should enhance competition to improve the quality of products and services to meet customer requirements and promote cooperation to leverage common strengths.

The PM also highly appreciated the role of President Marcos Jr. in the socio-economic development of the Philippines, including promoting and creating conditions for Philippine businesses to develop; especially creating conditions, new motivation, and inspiring businesses of the two countries to approach, to co-operate, and connecting the two economies.

The Vietnamese Government leader urged both sides to remove bottlenecks and grant investment licences in a swift manner as well as lifting irrational technical barriers, adding that relevant authorities in Việt Nam have worked to create a better business climate and development space for businesses from the two countries.

As there are no roadblocks in the bilateral cooperation, PM Chính asked both sides to organise more meetings and exchange events to push ahead the two economies’ connectivity, concretise high-level agreements, and develop the Việt Nam – Philippines Strategic Partnership into a deeper and more practical and effective fashion for prosperity in each nation and for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.

President Marcos Jr. emphasised that the Việt Nam - Philippines strategic partnership needed to be further expanded to businesses, especially in the fields of innovation and creativity, towards sustainable development, bringing practical benefits for the two countries, for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region.

Appreciating the open policy and active support by Việt Nam, the Philippine President believed that Philippine businesses would continue to cooperate and expand investment in Việt Nam.

He recommended they continue to develop traditional economic and trade cooperation fields, especially agriculture and other non-traditional fields such as mining, green technology investment, traffic and technology.

Regarding Việt Nam’s concern over the Philippines’ trade defence measures and technical barriers, he said the two countries should build a good business environment and step up cooperation at governmental and business levels.

The event drew the attendance of many Vietnamese and Philippine enterprises who are engaging in the fields of infrastructure development, trade, realty, automobile industry, aviation, IT, food, energy, education-training, among others.

They were updated with the socio-economic development in each nation and business cooperation outcomes between the two countries in the past and shared new investment trends and orientations for the future.

Vietnamese firms want to cooperate with their Philippine peers in digital transformation, green transition, hi-tech industries and food processing. Meanwhile, the Philippines hopes to collaborate with Việt Nam in electric automobile production, infrastructure development, telecommunications, energy, food, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and retail sales. – VNS