The 5th Vietnam - US Business Summit: “Reshaping bilateral economic relations”

DNHN - On the morning of March 8, in Hanoi, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended and spoke at the 5th Vietnam - US Business Summit with the theme "Reshaping bilateral economic relations".

At the conference, businesses from both nations explored options for promoting bilateral economic cooperation, identifying new avenues for economic recovery following COVID-19, and anticipating investment shifts following the pandemic and the influence of the digital economy.

There are numerous pressing concerns in business between the two countries and throughout the world, including: fostering innovation; digital transformation; energy transformation; promoting sustainable investment and stable policies to stimulate economic recovery.

Businesses in the United States expressed their satisfaction that Vietnam has been promoting the implementation of its COP26 commitments through a program to restructure the country's economy in line with global trends toward green economic development, circular economies, and digital economies; to promote the transition to green and clean energy development; to develop infrastructure, and to promote education and training. Additionally, these are areas in which US corporations wish to invest in Vietnam.

Speaking at the Conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his delight at the sincere feelings, affection and love of Vietnam and the desire of officials to continue to invest and expand investment in Vietnam. US businesses. This demonstrates the great level of trust held by American allies in Vietnam.

Building assets after the war

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that at the end of the 20th century, Vietnam experienced two resistance wars and then the southwestern and northern border wars.To this day, the consequences of the war are still very heavy. To get out of difficulties, Vietnam has carried out doi moi, in which the main pillars are to build a socialist democracy.

Socialist rule of law state; socialist-oriented market economy. Vietnam takes the people as the centre, the subject, the goal, and the driving force of development throughout that process.Vietnam has achieved enormous historical achievements in the last 35 years of conducting the renovation process.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam has determined that by 2030, Vietnam is a developing country with modern industry, high middle income and 2030. By 2045, it will become a developed, high-income country.Accordingly, Vietnam made three strategic breakthroughs including institutional breakthrough, infrastructure breakthrough, and breakthrough in improving the quality of human resources and administrative reform. 

The head of the Vietnamese Government said that, along with the development of the country, the relationship between Vietnam and the United States has also made a welcome development.After more than 26 years of normalizing relations (since 1995), the Vietnam-US cooperation relationship has made substantial and comprehensive progress, both bilaterally and multilaterally, in many fields. different cooperation.In particular, economic-trade-investment cooperation continues to be one of the important pillars and driving forces promoting the two countries relations. 

The bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and the US has increased about 248 times, from 450 million USD in 1995 to more than 111 billion USD in 2021.Vietnam's top export market is the United States, ranking Vietnam as its ninth-largest trading partner.

For many years, the United States has been one of the greatest investors in Vietnam, with about 1,150 active projects and total registered investment capital of more than 10.3 billion USD, ranking 11th out of 141 nations that invest in Vietnam."Shortly, the trade of the two countries will be even more favourablewhen we have completed the signing of the opening of direct flights in 2021," the Prime Minister emphasized.

Confidently open the door for recovery and development

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all economic and social activities for every country in the world. For Vietnam, the epidemic caused a serious impact in the third quarter of 2021.

Before the outbreak and spread of the pandemic, Vietnam identified this as a global problem, so a global approach was required; calling for international solidarity to prevent and control the epidemic. The epidemic affects the entire population, so there should be a people-wide approach; People are the centre and subject in epidemic prevention and control.

Vietnam implements 3 pillars in epidemic prevention and control, including "isolation, testing and treatment"; implement the epidemic prevention and control formula "5k + vaccines, treatment drugs + people's awareness + other measures".

In the early period of epidemic prevention and control, when there was not enough capacity, no experience, low vaccination rate..., Vietnam had to use administrative measures, thus affecting socio-economic development. After obtaining the formula for epidemic prevention and control; Vaccination rates increased, Vietnam changed its strategy to "safely adapting, flexibly, effectively controlling the COVID-19 epidemic" and achieved it.

This success is partly due to the material support, experience sharing, especially vaccine support for Vietnam by the international community, including the United States.

Up to now, Vietnam has controlled the epidemic nationwide; stabilize the macro-economy, ensure the major balances; maintain sovereignty and territorial integrity; ensure political security, social order and safety; Party building and anti-corruption work continued to be strengthened; external relations are strengthened; The trust of the people and international friends has been strengthened.Now, Vietnam is confident to open its doors based on science, practice and international experience.

This shows the accurate leadership and direction of the Communist Party of Vietnam; the participation of people and businesses; the sharing of international friends.

Currently, Vietnam is urgently implementing the Socio-Economic Development and Recovery Program together with the Master Program on COVID-19 Prevention and Control with the view that people are the centre and the subject. This is the driving force for development and the guiding ideology is to identify internal resources as the basic, long-term strategy and decisive; external resources are important and disruptive; focus on implementing 3 strategic breakthroughs in terms of institutions, infrastructure and human resources with the goal of fast recovery, sustainable development.

Implementation of commitments at COP 26

The Vietnamese government's head stated that because Vietnam is one of the countries most impacted by climate change, it is extremely concerned and understanding about the issue.Climate change is a global issue, so a global approach is required; global solidarity, fairness and justice in fighting climate change.

At the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Vietnam committed to reducing net emissions to zero by 2050, reducing the number of harmful methane emissions by 30%. greenhouse gas response by 2030. After COP26, Vietnam established a National Steering Committee and strongly implemented Vietnam's commitments at COP26.

The Prime Minister asked the United States as well as international friends to support Vietnam in the implementation of these items. Including supporting Vietnam in perfecting the institution on climate change; supporting green finance, green technology, clean technology; green human resource training; green management technology, etc. 

The Prime Minister also said that Vietnam focuses on digital transformation, building a digital government, digital citizens, developing the digital economy and digital society. This is an objective necessity in the current development trend and is implemented by Vietnam in all fields.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the issues discussed by the delegates at the conference were of common concern; suitable to the world trend, to the current conditions and circumstances of Vietnam; At the same time, he asked businesses of the two countries to continue promoting business investment, contributing to promoting the two countries relations to become more and more practical and effective.

“With the motto of harmonizing benefits, sharing risks; with sincere affection, trust and efficiency; We have a good foundation, desire, ambition and determination, we will succeed," the Prime Minister affirmed.

Khanh Anh