Hanoi (VNA) –The third Vietnam-Australia Economic Partnership Meeting was held in Hanoi onApril 17 under the co-chair of Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen ChiDung and Australian Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell.

Addressing the event, Dungsaid that the Vietnam-Australia economic cooperation has seen strong growthover the years. Since the two sides lifted up their ties to a strategic partnershipin 2018, they have become partners in many areas from trade, investment,development investment, agriculture, education and training.

Australia is one of the largest providers of non-refundable officialdevelopment assistance (ODA) for Vietnam, he said, citing statistics announced by the Australian Embassy that in the 2022-2023 period, Australia has increase ODA to Vietnamby 18% from 78.9 million AUD (52.98 million USD) to 92.8 million AUD (62.32 million USD),focusing on areas of renovation, skilled worker training, women empowerment,COVID-19 response, and encouraging the private sector’s engagement insocio-economic development.

As of March this year, Australia had 593 valid projects in Vietnam worth 1.99billion USD, ranking 20th out of 143 countries and territoriesinvesting in Vietnam.

Last year, two-waytrade rose 26.9% to 15.7 billion USD, including Vietnam’s exports of 5.6billion USD, making Australia the seventh biggest trade partner of Vietnam.

Vietnam currentlyranks fifth among countries sending students to Australia with more than22,000 students as of December 2022.

According to Dung, the meeting will consider working groups in various areas todiscuss multilateral economic cooperation, contributing to promoting thesustainable development of bilateral partnership.

He called for more investment from Australia and suggested that the Australian side coordinate with Vietnam to develop thebilateral relations in a more balance manner, and support Vietnam in tradepromotion activities and introducing more products, especially agro-fisheriesproducts in Australia.

The two sides shouldwork closer in new cooperation areas such as innovation, green and renewableenergy, circular and high-tech agriculture as well as culture and tourism, hesaid.

For his part, Farrell affirmed that cooperation between Australia and Vietnam has been fruitful in all fields, especially trade, investment, education and training. He said he believes that the meeting will open up new development orientations for the Vietnam-Australia partnership.

At the meeting, the two sides discussed measures to further foster theVietnam-Australia economic ties, evaluate the implementation of theVietnam-Australia Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy and the outcomes ofworking groups on ODA, foreign investment and trade, and listen torecommendations from businesses of both sides on measures to improve thebusiness environment quality.

Participants alsodiscussed cooperation between the two countries at multilateral and regional forumssuch as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), World Trade Organisation(WTO), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Comprehensive andProgressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), ASEAN-Australia-NewZealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA),and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).

The meeting took placein the context that the two countries are celebrating the 50th founding anniversaryof the bilateral diplomatic relations (1973 - 2023). During the visit to Vietnamby Governor-General of Australia David Hurley in April, the two sides agreed todiscuss upgrading the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership atan appropriate time.

Participants agreed to organise the fourth Vietnam-Australia EconomicPartnership Meeting in Australia in a convenient time./.