At the event, he said that Vietnam highly valued Thailand’s investment projects in Vietnam and Vietnam’s government will create favourable conditions for Thai investors over the long term in Vietnam. More to follow.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung stressed that Vietnam wanted to integrate into the global economy. Vietnam has established relations with almost every country in the world and has 13 strategic partnerships, including Thailand. In addition, Vietnam joined the ASEAN community and is nearing the signing of an EU free trade agreement and is holding further discussions on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. This will be an important transition for Vietnam’s business market to meet international standards.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said: Business environment in Vietnam still faces some difficulties but we are determined to implement many solutions, especially administrative reforms in tax, customs procedures, social insurance, construction permits, real estate ownership and power access. Vietnam is striving to improve the business environment in order to meet the ASEAN-6 standards in 2015 and ASEAN-4 standards in 2016. Many important laws have been amended in 2015 such as the Investment Law, Business Law, Housing Law and PPP Decree on public-private partnership investments. They are strong evidence of Vietnam to improve the business environment to meet international standards and free trade agreements.
Thailand is the 10th largest investor out of 103 countries and territories that invest in Vietnam with 392 direct investment projects and registered capital of 7 billion USD. Thailand is also the 5th largest business partner of Vietnam with trade turnover of 12 billion USD in this year. The joint cabinet meeting on Thursday should create more opportunities for businesses from both countries enhance ties and develop the strategic partnership.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said: "The two countries agreed to create better conditions to see 20 billion USD in two-way trade turnover by 2020. We agreed that the business communities have an important role to develop links between the two countries. Vietnam has highly valued Thai investment projects in Vietnam. We always tried our best to create conditions for your businesses to invest in Vietnam."
On the same day, the prime minister had a meeting with the president of the Thai Chroen Group, currently implementing many investment projects in Vietnam. The prime minister stressed that Vietnam was focusing on restructuring state-owned businesses. In this process, the Charoen Group will corporate with Vietnamese authorities on the equitisation of Vietnam’s state-owned enterprises.
The prime minister also met with CEO of Siam Cement Group, which has a major presence in Vietnam through building materials and petrochemicals in Vietnam. He also met the presidents of the Charoen Pokphand and Amata groups. Amata has been in Vietnam since 1994 and constructed many industrial zones in Bien Hoa and Dong Nai Province. The industrial zones have attracted 1,000 investors from 30 countries and created 40,000 jobs.
