Farm produce is among the staples Vietnamese companies hope to ship to the Bulgarian and Romanian markets. — Photo VNA

The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) will organise a business trip for 20 domestic companies to seek new opportunities in Bulgaria and Romania from Thursday.

The enterprises operate in a wide range of areas including farm produce such as fruit, tea and coffee, seafood and dairy, besides mechanical equipment and plastics, handicrafts, energy, finance, banking and human resources.

The week-long trip aimed to better advertise Vietnamese enterprises and provide them with the latest market information so they could adopt effective business strategies to accelerate their exports, online newspaper vietnamplus.vn cited a representative from Vietrade as saying.

Currently, Romania is the largest market in southern Europe for Vietnamese goods, with a population of 21 million people. The country is regarded as a gateway to the EU with more than 500 million consumers thanks to its geographical position.

Trade relations between Viet Nam and Romania have seen positive results in recent years. Last year, trade saw a slight increase of 6 per cent to US$218.3 million, with Vietnamese exports accounting for $150 million, up 23 per cent year-on-year.

In the first quarter of 2019, bilateral trade turnover saw a significant rise of 37 per cent to nearly $67 million, mainly due to Vietnamese exports which surged 60 per cent year-on-year.

The same picture has also been seen in the two-way relationship between Viet Nam and Bulgaria.

The nations’ leaders had agreed to develop bilateral co-operation on the basis of taking advantage of the potential and strengths of the two countries. Under the deal, Viet Nam could export a number of major products to Bulgaria. These goods would be processed at facilities located at Bulgarian ports and then exported to European markets and Balkan countries, the representative said.

After slumping nearly 19 per cent to $89 million in 2018, trade value between Viet Nam and Bulgaria rebounded in the first two months of 2019 with turnover of $15 million, up 26 per cent year-on-year. Of the total, exports of Vietnamese goods reached $8.2 million, a hike of 87 per cent. — VNS