Berlin visit brings trade boost

Vietnamese and German leaders have agreed to increase trade turnover through a series of co-operative deals

During Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang’s November 24-26 state visit to Germany, also the first by a Vietnamese president since 1990, he and German President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that the two countries would try to reach a trade turnover of $15-20 billion by 2020 when German investment into Vietnam would rise to $5 billion, from the current $1.41 billion.

Over the past five years, bilateral trade turnover between the two countries has doubled, from $4.8 billion in 2010 to $7.8 billion last year.

In order to reach these targets, the leaders agreed that the two countries would invent new mechanisms to facilitate enterprises to do business, especially once the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, with which a deal on officially concluding negotiations will be signed this week in Brussels, takes effect in the next few years.

The two countries during this visit also signed a raft of co-operation deals (see table).

Also during this visit, Germany’s government decided to provide Vietnam with a $220 million loan in development co-operation for the 2015-2020 period. Since 1990, Germany has provided about $2 billion to Vietnam in official development assistance.

This loan will primarily focus on three key sectors, including energy, environment and vocational training, which are all suitable to Vietnam’s development strategy.

The German leaders stressed that Germany attached great importance to the long-term strategic partnership forged in 2010 with Vietnam based on a mutual benefit basis.

Sang noted that Vietnam considered Germany as one of its key partners in Europe, and hoped to further cement the two countries’ multi-faceted co-operation.

The two countries’ leaders agreed that high-level visit exchanges would be promoted to further solidify the Vietnam-Germany strategic partnership.

Importing 20 per cent of Vietnam’s exports, Germany is currently Vietnam’s leading partner in Europe in many sectors such as commerce, science and technology, co-operation development, environment, law, education and vocational training.

Many German firms are operating well in Vietnam, such as Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, B.Braun, Messer, and Allianz.