Promoting economic diplomacy to serve development...

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended and chaired the conference.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang and Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son co-chaired the conference; also attending were representatives of leaders of ministries, sectors, central agencies, industry associations, corporations and key enterprises. The conference was broadcast live to Vietnamese representative agencies abroad.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his warmest greetings, warmest regards, and best wishes to the delegates; stating that this time marks exactly one year since we launched the Government's Action Program to implement Directive No. 15-CT/TW dated August 10, 2022 of the Secretariat on promoting NGKT, nearly 3 months of implementing the tasks of the State diplomacy since the beginning of the year.

The Prime Minister stated that we are promoting three traditional growth drivers including investment, consumption, and export; in addition, we are promoting new growth drivers including digital transformation, green transformation, circular economy, knowledge economy, and sharing economy.

In addition to renewing old growth drivers, it is necessary to add new growth drivers. This directly involves Vietnamese representative agencies abroad, businesses, and people.

Conference scene.

The Prime Minister emphasized that we have drawn development lessons from nearly 40 years of Doi Moi, which is to combine national strength with the strength of the times; maximize the country's potential for development; affirm that Vietnam's internal strength has three most important factors: people, nature, historical traditions, and culture.

According to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, resources come from thinking; motivation comes from innovation; strength comes from the people. We must continue to promote the combination of internal and external resources, the strength of the people and businesses in the cause of national construction and defense.

In the current context, we must develop rapidly but sustainably; not sacrifice progress and social justice to pursue mere economic growth; develop harmoniously between politics, culture, economy, national security and defense, anti-corruption; harmonize the interests of the State, people, and businesses; harmonize interests with partners in the spirit of "harmonized interests, shared risks".

Therefore, the task is how do we promote the work of NGKT? This conference is an improvement over last year's conference in terms of its composition and conference organizations. In addition to the usual components, we also invited overseas Vietnamese businesses because the Party's policy is that overseas Vietnamese are an inseparable part of the Vietnamese ethnic community.

The conference was held directly at the Government Office and connected to 94 Vietnamese representative agencies abroad.

The Prime Minister emphasized the “3 together”: Listening and understanding together; sharing vision, awareness and action together; working together, enjoying together, winning together and developing together. This is always true when implementing with businesses, partners and people.

The Prime Minister said that in addition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Industry and Trade also holds monthly meetings with Vietnamese representative agencies abroad to find markets, promote development based on science and technology, innovation, and startups; and overcome disruptions in supply chains and production chains caused by geopolitical factors, crises, and conflicts in the world.

To do so, there must be participation and involvement of businesses and state management agencies such as ministries and branches such as Foreign Affairs, Industry and Trade, Agriculture and Rural Development, Public Security, National Defense, Science and Technology, etc.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh delivered a speech at the conference.

We must continue to review and grasp the world and regional situation to consolidate existing markets, expand new markets, overcome shortages and what countries need; overcome disruptions in the global supply chain and production chain by improving and consolidating brands, product quality, green development, digital development; closely coordinate domestically and internationally, coordinate among ministries, departments and branches, coordinate between the State and businesses and people in the spirit of harmonious interests and shared risks.

The Prime Minister emphasized that the world situation is changing unpredictably, so we must maintain balance so as not to be too intoxicated with victory, but in difficult times, we must be calm, persistent, and steadfast in implementing the Party's guidelines, and creatively apply them to practical situations; for example, while rice prices are high in the world, Vietnam must share the world's difficulties, not take advantage of difficulties, not develop too quickly, but must strengthen its brand, quality, and keep prices at a reasonable level. Ministries, sectors, and enterprises must closely follow the situation, be proactive in developing brands, exporting sustainably, adapting to the situation, and maximizing the effectiveness of the country's resources in import and export.

At the conference, reporting on the results of implementing economic diplomacy from 2023 to present, Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son emphasized that in the context of the world economic situation continuing to evolve rapidly and complicatedly, economic diplomacy has been implemented synchronously and comprehensively, gradually becoming a basic and central task, contributing positively to the country's socio-economic development results, with the following 3 outstanding results:

Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son speaks.

Firstly, the institutionalization and implementation of NGKT have been carried out in a more timely and systematic manner. The Government has issued for the first time an Action Program on NGKT to implement Directive 15 of the Secretariat; ministries, branches and localities have actively issued action plans to concretize Directive 15 of the Secretariat and the Government's Action Program.

Coordination in implementing NGKT has been strengthened and innovated; actively advising and establishing inter-sectoral coordination mechanisms, such as the National Steering Committee on Semiconductors, the Cooperation Plan for the period 2023-2026 between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Cooperation Plan to attract overseas Vietnamese tourism between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, etc.

Second, NGKT continues to make important contributions to maintaining a favorable foreign policy situation for national development. Economic content continues to be the focus of nearly 60 high-level foreign affairs activities since the beginning of 2023, with many commitments and economic cooperation agreements signed.

Foreign relations and economic cooperation have been expanded; the frameworks of relations with 30 strategic partners and comprehensive partners have been consolidated, expanded, upgraded and upgraded. Accordingly, from the second half of 2023 to now, we have upgraded the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with 4 major partners: the United States, China, Japan and Australia with many important cooperation contents such as science and technology, semiconductors, new generation ODA, green economy and digital economy.

Third, NGKT directly contributes to the positive results of foreign economic relations and international economic integration and linkage. NGKT has actively supported the promotion, dissemination, and removal of trade barriers, promoting new directions such as the development of the Halal industry, thereby expanding the market for industries, fields, localities and businesses.

Representatives of leaders of ministries, departments and branches attended the conference.

Actively advise, promote investment and attract resources to develop industries that can create breakthroughs such as high-tech semiconductors and human resource training, AI, digital economy, green economy, and energy transition.

Actively and responsibly participate and contribute to multilateral cooperation frameworks, ensuring balanced responses to economic integration initiatives of other countries, contributing to enhancing Vietnam's position. The work of promoting UNESCO heritage and mobilizing resources from the overseas intellectual and business community has been promoted.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that, along with the Secretariat issuing Directive 15, the Government issuing the Action Program to implement Directive 15, the Government's attention and drastic direction are important driving forces that have helped the work of NGKT in recent times to have strong changes and innovations from thinking to action, to be implemented synchronously, comprehensively and to achieve outstanding and substantive results...

At the conference, the Head of the Vietnamese Representative Office abroad presented many papers on the work of NGKT in the past time, the difficulties, challenges, and obstacles, and at the same time proposed many solutions to the Government, the Prime Minister, ministries and branches to further enhance the effectiveness of NGKT work in the coming time.

Representatives of associations and businesses also presented their thoughts and aspirations to enhance cooperation and information exchange with Vietnamese representative agencies abroad, thereby improving the effectiveness of investment and trade promotion.

In his concluding remarks at the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh conveyed the greetings and congratulations of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to the delegates attending the meeting, hoping that the delegates, including the Heads of Vietnamese Representative Agencies Abroad, would continue to do their utmost for the development of the country. The Prime Minister asked the subjects to continue to carry out their tasks and activities in the spirit of "3 together": listening and understanding together; sharing the vision of action together; working together, winning together, enjoying together and developing together.

According to the Prime Minister, in the coming time, besides the advantages, economic diplomacy will face many difficulties and challenges: in the region and the world, the world economy will recover slowly; geopolitical tensions will increase, the trend of politicizing economic cooperation will continue to spread; the situation of differentiation, fragmentation, and disruption of production chains and supply chains will continue to increase, etc. In the country, inflationary pressure will remain high; the production and business situation in a number of industries and fields will still face difficulties and bottlenecks, especially in terms of markets, access to capital, and costs; high-quality human resources will remain limited, especially for emerging industries and fields; administrative procedures in some fields will remain cumbersome; some mechanisms and policies will be slowly amended; strategic infrastructure in some fields will remain limited.

The Prime Minister said that we must always maintain balance, "not be arrogant when winning, not be discouraged when losing", maintain our mettle, stay calm, persevere, not be too intoxicated with victory and when things are going well, not panic or waver when facing difficulties and challenges, comply with and creatively apply the Party and State's guidelines, policies, and laws to suit the situation.

Believing that economic diplomacy needs to continue to serve the task of national development, while respecting the legitimate and legal interests of partners, the Prime Minister gave an example that currently, the prices of some agricultural products such as rice are good, so we must both seize the opportunity for sustainable development; listen, understand, and share with partners, not take advantage when partners are in difficulty; avoid rapid development, focus on building and preserving brands, improving product quality, with reasonable prices, not "eating quickly".

The Prime Minister pointed out major orientations for economic diplomacy in the coming time: well organizing foreign affairs programs of senior leaders and foreign affairs activities at all levels, making economic content continue to become a focus of foreign affairs activities. In particular, it is necessary to clearly identify specific and feasible products, projects and plans for each partner to promote implementation; jointly renew traditional growth drivers (export, investment, consumption), while promoting new growth drivers (digital economy, green economy, circular economy, sharing economy, knowledge economy), new and breakthrough fields (high technology, innovation, semiconductors, hydrogen, AI, etc.); maximizing the potential of the frameworks, relationships that have just been upgraded, and signed Free Trade Agreements.

It is necessary to seriously review, monitor and promote the implementation of commitments with international partners. Promote the mobilization of resources of more than 6 million overseas Vietnamese to serve the country's development; create more favorable conditions for overseas Vietnamese to contribute to the country's development, becoming an important subject in implementing economic diplomacy in the coming time.

Regarding specific measures, the Prime Minister requested to actively and proactively convey messages to international partners about the Government's receptive spirit and commitment to ensuring a safe and attractive political, investment and business environment in Vietnam. Urge the implementation of signed international agreements and commitments. In the process of preparing periodic reports on the implementation of Directive 15 and Resolution 21 on economic diplomacy, ministries, branches and localities must quantify and clearly report on the specific results achieved. If there are any difficulties, recommendations for solutions must be clearly identified and addressed by competent authorities.

Strengthen economic, trade and investment relations with major and key markets and expand and diversify markets, focusing more on potential areas with much room for cooperation such as the UAE, the Middle East, Africa, the Halal market, etc. Create breakthroughs in attracting investment in new fields such as semiconductors, AI, energy, etc.; promote and warmly welcome working delegations of business organizations and large corporations in the world to Vietnam; grasp and propose appropriate and timely handling of proposals from the business community.

Practically and effectively organize the Overseas Vietnamese Intellectuals and Experts Forum together with the upcoming Overseas Vietnamese Conference so that overseas Vietnamese experts and intellectuals can share and contribute to the country's development issues; improve the quality, sensitivity, and timeliness of research, information, strategic consulting, grasping trends, and timely policy responses to serve socio-economic management; focus on new trends, policy adjustment trends, and new priorities of partners, "what they need, not what we have".

The Prime Minister emphasized that economic diplomacy in 2024 must be breakthrough, specifically: innovation in thinking; creativity in strategy; unity in action; opportunities must be seized, solutions must be breakthroughs; implementation must be drastic, focused, and key.

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