UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan presided over the official welcoming ceremony for Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on his official visit to the UAE – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
On the night of November 1, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his wife, along with a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation, returned to Hanoi, successfully concluding their visit to three Middle Eastern countries: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar. This is the first official visit by a Vietnamese Prime Minister to the region in 15 years.
The Gulf is one of the world's leading dynamic development regions, leading in oil reserves, having leading financial centers, leading in transforming new development models towards economic diversification and embracing new trends in green transformation, digital transformation and innovation.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed on six priority areas of cooperation within the framework of the Comprehensive Partnership – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the energy powers with large economies and important roles in the Middle East. The three countries in particular and the Middle East - North Africa region in general are major partners, markets, financial and technological centers of the region and the world with great potential and room for cooperation with Vietnam.
Vietnam and the countries of the Gulf region, the Middle East and North Africa have long had a tradition of good friendship. In particular, in recent years, the Middle Eastern countries have prioritized Vietnam in their “Eastern policy”. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are increasingly closer to ASEAN countries in terms of vision and development orientation.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh holds talks with Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
These are important foundations for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar as well as other countries in the region and Vietnam to strengthen cooperation, exploit each other's potential and strengths, connect with each other, complement each other, and bring the relationship to a new level, more comprehensive, deeper, more effective, and more sustainable in all fields. However, the economic, trade, and investment cooperation between Vietnam and the three countries in recent times has not been commensurate with the good political and diplomatic relations, potential, needs, and desires of both sides.
During his visit to the three countries, the Prime Minister had a dense, rich, practical and effective working program with nearly 60 activities, including talks and meetings with senior leaders, ministers, leaders of the world's leading corporations and investment funds of the three countries; speaking at the 8th Future Investment Initiative Conference (FII8) in Saudi Arabia; delivering a policy speech at the UAE Diplomatic Academy; speaking at the Vietnam - UAE Business Forum; attending the opening ceremony of Vinfast's showroom in the UAE and the opening ceremony of FPT's regional office in Saudi Arabia; visiting the Ras Laffan petrochemical complex in Qatar, the Museum of the Future in Dubai (UAE) and the Qatar National Museum; meeting with embassy staff and the Vietnamese community in the three countries, etc.
Prime Minister of the State of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jasim Al-Thani presided over the official welcoming ceremony for Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his wife, along with a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation on an official visit to the State of Qatar – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
Ministers, leaders of agencies and localities participating in the working delegation also had dozens of practical and effective meetings, working sessions and exchanges with partners.
The visit of the Prime Minister and the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation achieved many important and substantive results, marking an important milestone in the good relationship between Vietnam and the three countries of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar in particular and the Middle East - North Africa region in general.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh held talks and in-depth discussions with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdurahman Al Thani – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
“Wisdom”, “Time” and Future Vision
“Time” and “Wisdom” are important orientations that the head of the Vietnamese Government paid special attention to during his visit to the three countries. Thinking, strategic vision, and looking towards the future are also strong impressions in the Prime Minister's activities, right from the names of events and locations such as the Future Investment Initiative Conference, the Museum of the Future, and the future development path that the three countries as well as Vietnam have determined.
According to the Prime Minister, Vietnam's development path has many similarities with the three countries, in which the leaders have common vision, innovative and development thinking; value "time", value "intelligence", and share the same aspiration to develop a prosperous and prosperous country, and for the people to have a prosperous and happy life.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum witnessed the signing ceremony of the CEPA Agreement, Vietnam's first free trade agreement with an Arab country - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
The Prime Minister highly appreciated and was impressed by the remarkable development, the miracles, and the spectacular successes in transforming the growth model, "turning the impossible into possible" of the three countries. Looking to the future, with the desire to constantly strive, the UAE is striving to realize the " UAE Vision 2031 ", " UAE Vision 2071 ", Qatar is implementing the " Vision 2030 " strategy and Saudi Arabia is implementing the " Vision 2030 " strategy.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is striving to realize two 100-year goals: by 2030 ( the 100th anniversary of the Party's founding ), it will become a developing country with modern industry and high average income; by 2045 ( the 100th anniversary of the country's founding) , it will become a developed country with high income.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the Prime Minister of the State of Qatar witnessed the signing ceremony of the Protocol between the Government of the State of Qatar and the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam amending the Agreement on air transport signed on March 8, 2009 – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that Vietnam and other countries need to accompany, inspire, stand side by side, cooperate closely, support and help each other on the journey to realize the vision and aspirations for development, towards a prosperous and happy future.
In particular, through meetings with the leaders of the three countries, the Prime Minister repeatedly shared his strong impressions of the innovative thinking, strategic vision, management methods and orientations, solutions for national development, as well as the motto of decisive action, defining clear work tasks, and valuing the time and intelligence of the leaders of the countries. These are also valuable experiences that Vietnam can study and refer to.
Receiving leaders of leading corporations of the UAE, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh suggested that corporations invest in strategic sectors of Vietnam - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
For example, the procedure for establishing a business takes only 5 minutes, helping the UAE have 1.5 million listed businesses, a three- fold increase compared to the number of 500,000 businesses 3 years ago. The Dubai Museum of the Future (UAE) demonstrates the ambition to break the conventional limits of physics and thinking. The Qatar National Museum is one of the works in the overall project to turn Doha into a world-famous cultural capital ...
“ Time waits for no one, but thinking, vision, and intelligence must surpass oneself to accomplish great things ,” Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh shared.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives UAE Minister of Investment Mohammed Bin Hassan Al Suwaidi – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
With such a mindset, the visit affirmed the new thinking, new strategic vision, high determination, strong commitment, and drastic actions of Vietnamese leaders in promoting multi-faceted cooperation, contributing to raising the level of relations with the three countries in particular and the potential Gulf, Middle East - North Africa region in general.
The official upgrading of relations has made the UAE Vietnam's first Comprehensive Partner in the Middle East, opening up new development space for bilateral relations, expanding Vietnam's Comprehensive Partnership network to 14 countries. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Qatar also agreed to promote the early elevation of relations to a new level in the coming time, thereby contributing to promoting Vietnam to strengthen relations with other important partners in the region.
At the meeting with the Prime Minister, Saudi Aramco Chairman and CEO Amin Al-Nasser expressed his desire to invest in oil refining and petroleum distribution in Vietnam - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
The visit deepened political trust and strengthened the good relationship between the Vietnamese high-ranking leaders and the three countries' senior leaders and royal families. The countries gave a thoughtful and respectful welcome with many exceptions for the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation; accordingly, the partner countries understood more about Vietnam, not only as a country with a rich and unique culture, a heroic and resilient history in protecting independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, but also as a country with great aspirations and on the way to strong development, contributing to the preservation of a peaceful and stable environment in the region and the world.
Affirming that there are no limits in relations with Vietnam, the Emir of Qatar said that Qatar is always open to cooperation activities with Vietnam. The UAE President affirmed that Vietnam is an important partner of the UAE in Asia and cooperation with Vietnam is one of the main concerns of the UAE. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian Minister of Investment affirmed that the Crown Prince, Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a "historic" meeting.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received Mr. Sulaiman AIRumaih, CEO of SALIC Company – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
Many important documents were approved during the working trip, including the Joint Statement on upgrading Vietnam-UAE relations to Comprehensive Partnership, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between Vietnam and UAE, the Joint Communique between Vietnam and Qatar, 33 cooperation documents in the fields of trade - investment, finance, energy, innovation, standards, measurement and quality, education - training, sports, cooperation between enterprises, etc.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed on six priority areas of cooperation and directed the urgent development of action programs to be implemented immediately within the framework of the Comprehensive Partnership.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia agreed to make economic cooperation a key pillar in bilateral relations, making Saudi Arabia one of the leading investors in Vietnam, and agreed to identify the pillars of the two countries' "future cooperation" as innovation, green transformation, and digital transformation.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Qatari Prime Minister agreed that the Vietnam-Qatar relationship has entered a new, deeper and more comprehensive phase, identifying economic, trade and investment cooperation as an important pillar. The two sides agreed to promote trade, prioritizing each other’s strengths such as agricultural products, seafood, footwear, textiles, etc. of Vietnam and oil and gas products, energy and chemicals of Qatar.
Receiving the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked QIA to consider boosting investment in Vietnam, focusing on strategic infrastructure projects, wind power projects, solar power projects, power storage systems, and power transmission - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
On the basis of consolidating the foundation of political and diplomatic trust, along with promoting the focus of economic, trade and investment cooperation, the Prime Minister and the leaders of the countries also agreed to strengthen defense and security cooperation, contributing to maintaining the independence and sovereignty of each country and maintaining a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment for development in the two regions and the world.
Prime Minister attends Vietnam – UAE business dialogue – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
From inspirational messages…
The highlight of the visit is to promote economic, trade and investment cooperation with all three countries in particular and the Gulf and Middle East regions in general. The Prime Minister delivered speeches and conveyed many important messages at talks, meetings with leaders, conferences, events and had a series of meetings with Ministers and Secretaries of State in charge of economics, investment, industry, energy, foreign trade, etc. of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the 8th Future Investment Initiative (FII) Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
The Prime Minister attended the 8th Future Investment Initiative Conference (FII8 Conference) organized by Saudi Arabia with the theme “ Infinite Horizons: Investing Today, Shaping the Future ”. In his important speech, the Prime Minister sent a message about Vietnam being innovative, dynamic and ready to exchange, share and propose initiatives to promote investment with other countries for a sustainable and prosperous future.
The Prime Minister emphasized that as one of the countries that has suffered the most pain and loss since World War II, continuously affected by war, siege and embargo for decades, the Party, State and People of Vietnam have put the past behind them, turned enemies into friends, overcome differences, promoted similarities and looked towards the future.
Prime Minister attends Vinfast car exhibition and introduction event in UAE – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
According to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, after nearly 40 years of innovation, integration and development, from a country under siege, embargo, poverty, backwardness, and war, Vietnam's GDP has increased to 430 billion USD in 2023, with GDP per capita reaching about 4,300 USD . In recent years, despite many difficulties and instability in the world economy, growth in many economies and global investment has declined, Vietnam's GDP growth has still reached nearly double the global average growth rate, among the high-growth countries in the region and the world.
The Prime Minister stated that Vietnam hopes that partners, business communities, and investors from the three countries, the Gulf region, and the world will continue to further promote cooperation, investment, and business activities in Vietnam and with Vietnamese partners, especially renewing traditional growth drivers and promoting new growth drivers.
The Prime Minister attended the opening ceremony of FPT's Middle East headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
The Prime Minister affirmed: " Vietnam always adheres to the policy of increasing the attraction of all resources from inside and outside, especially public-private partnership, creating favorable conditions, ensuring the legitimate and legal rights and interests of investors ", with " open institutions, smooth infrastructure, and smart governance ".
Along with efforts to promote strategic institutional breakthroughs, create a favorable legal environment, a transparent and highly competitive investment and business environment in the region and globally, constantly reduce and simplify administrative procedures, prioritize emerging industries and fields, and remove difficulties for investment and business, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated: " Vietnam is focusing on investing in developing a synchronous and modern strategic infrastructure system, especially transport and logistics infrastructure to reduce costs and time, increase product competitiveness and healthcare and education infrastructure to ensure investor welfare " and " Vietnam always pays great attention to training human resources, especially high-quality human resources, associated with the development of science and technology, innovation to contribute to increasing labor productivity and improving investment efficiency ".
At the same time, “ Vietnam invests in consolidating and enhancing its national defense and security potential, maintaining political and social stability, firmly protecting independence and sovereignty, creating a solid foundation to ensure security, safety and maintain a peaceful, stable and long-term environment favorable for businesses and investors ,” Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his wife with Vietnamese children in the UAE – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
The Head of the Vietnamese Government took full advantage of the time and opportunity to introduce and promote the potential, strengths, and opportunities for investment and business cooperation in Vietnam - one of the dynamic, creative, and fast-growing economies in the region and the world. The Prime Minister pointed out and proposed to strongly promote cooperation in many areas and products that are strengths of Vietnam and the three countries with the world's leading leaders, corporations, and investment funds.
For example, the Abu Dhabi Investment Fund (ADIA) is managing assets of about 830 billion USD, the fourth largest investment fund in the world; Mubadala Fund owned by the Abu Dhabi Government with total assets of about 300 billion USD; Qatar Investment Fund (QIA) with estimated assets of about 475 billion USD, etc.
Along with that is Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco Oil Corporation with 2023 revenue reaching nearly 500 billion USD and total assets reaching over 660 billion USD; Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation (ADNOC) is one of the largest oil corporations in the world; Qatar Energy is the company responsible for managing all oil and gas activities of Qatar - the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh proposed and received high consensus from the leaders of the three countries and large corporations and investment funds to increase investment in strategic, breakthrough and symbolic fields and projects in Vietnam. In the field of oil and gas, the Prime Minister suggested that Qatar Energy strengthen cooperation with the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group to implement major projects to enhance Vietnam's self-reliance in the field of gas-fired power generation; and promote ADNOC to build a transit center, reserve crude oil and petrochemical products in Vietnam for export to regional markets.
Prime Minister and his wife with embassy officials and overseas Vietnamese in Saudi Arabia – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
Regarding agriculture, the Prime Minister said that Vietnam could achieve an agricultural export turnover of about 60 billion USD in 2024, focusing on transformation and restructuring towards high quality, "delicious food, clean food"; cooperation in this field will both contribute to ensuring food security for the three countries and open up cooperation opportunities with Vietnam to exploit the potential Halal market.
The Prime Minister's goodwill, sincerity, and desire to promote cooperation with partners is demonstrated through every small detail, such as when receiving a Qatari business delegation, the Prime Minister asked the interpreter to speak louder so that all members of the delegation could hear, or when listening to UAE partners about business development and immigration policies, the Prime Minister asked for further sharing, creating lessons for Vietnam.
Leaders, businesses and investors from the three countries highly appreciated the information and messages that the Prime Minister shared about the business investment environment, strategies, mechanisms and priority policies to attract investment in Vietnam; at the same time, he expressed his readiness to promote cooperation and expand investment in Vietnam in the coming time. As assessed by the Minister of Industry and Minerals of Saudi Arabia: " The messages of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh have been strongly inspiring ".
Along with important, fundamental factors of growth rate, investment environment, young, increasingly high-quality human resources, favorable geographical location, partners, business communities, and investors of the three countries are also particularly impressed with Vietnam's development policies, guidelines, strategies, and policies, and the country's cultural and historical traditions, and the precious values of the Vietnamese people such as the spirit of peace, love of peace, and opposition to war, especially in the context of many fluctuations and conflicts in the world and the region in many places.
The Saudi Arabian Minister of Investment affirmed: “ I, the Royal Family and all the people of Saudi Arabia are very impressed with what Vietnam has done, creating a miracle after a fierce war ”. According to the Minister: “ Other countries that had to suffer such a disaster would have taken generations to recover, but Vietnam has quickly recovered and developed among the fastest in the world, creating great opportunities for people, businesses and investors, especially recently Vietnam has come up with alternative solutions to ensure that the global supply chain, including the high-tech supply chain, is not disrupted ”.
…to the “historic mark” CEPA and specific, substantive agreements
During Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit, the three countries and Vietnam agreed on many major orientations and reached many important agreements on economic, trade and investment cooperation.
Vietnam and the UAE aim to reach a two-way trade turnover of 20 billion USD in the coming time... With Saudi Arabia, the two sides agreed to a trade turnover target of 10 billion USD. With Qatar, the two sides will study the establishment of a Joint Working Group on Trade; consider the possibility of building a Vietnam Product Exhibition Center in Qatar...
In the UAE, the country's Minister of Economy said he was very interested in learning about Vietnam's economic policies and that the UAE wanted to organize a Vietnam-UAE Investment Promotion Conference, scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2025 within the framework of the Investopia initiative initiated by the UAE. The UAE Minister of Investment said he was ready to share experiences and support Vietnam in building financial centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang City at the request of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
In Saudi Arabia, the country's Ministry of Investment wants to promote the negotiation process of the Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, moving towards negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries.
In Qatar, Minister of Communication and Information Technology of this country asked Vietnam to open a technology business center in Qatar to produce products, provide services not only Qatar but also for the Gulf area.
Leaders of investment funds and large corporations of the three countries have affirmed that after the Prime Minister's visit will immediately send a delegation to Vietnam to learn about investment and business opportunities with the spirit of " not missing the opportunity " is opening and soon realizing the agreement of senior leaders.
For example, the leader of Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power Energy Corporation emphasized that he wants to cooperate for a long time with Vietnam, including human resource training and ready to invest 5 billion USD with the advantage of Vietnam.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh assigned ministers, leaders of ministries, agencies and localities to join the delegation to promote the exchange with partners to concretize the exchange results and agreements of senior leaders.
A very expected highlight and has become a reality in the visit, which is the signing of the comprehensive economic partnership of Vietnam - UAE (CEPA) - Vietnam's first free trade agreement with a Middle Eastern country.
This is the result of the high determination of the leaders of the two countries, including the fierce direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
With this agreement, the UAE will open the door for almost all items that Vietnam has the advantage of export, is considered to be a historic milestone to open a big road for Vietnam to go deep into the UAE market, countries in the Gulf, the Middle East - North Africa.
With the beginning of the CEPA Agreement from the UAE, visiting Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Prime Minister proposed and received a positive and exciting feedback from the leaders of the two countries about promoting negotiations and signing bilateral free trade agreements in the shortest time, on the basis of reference to Vietnam and the ways of Vietnam and UAE in the CEPA Agreement.
At the Future Investment Initiative Forum that Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended in Saudi Arabia, leaders of many countries congratulated the Vietnam and UAE event to sign the CEPA - the event that created a great echo in the Gulf, and wanted to negotiate and sign the same agreement soon.
In meetings with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Egypt and Crown Prince Jordan expressed his deep admiration for President Ho Chi Minh and gave special affection for the country and people of Vietnam.
The Crown Prince Jordan welcomed the new direction of Vietnam in investing in Halal development, affirming that Arab countries are very potential and ready to coordinate and import Halal food products of Vietnam to ensure domestic food security as well as expand and re -export to regional markets.
Also on the visit, the Prime Minister asked the leaders of the three countries to create the most favorable conditions for the Vietnamese community to stabilize their lives, security, safety, peace of mind to work for a long time, effectively, contributing to a solid bridge for friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries.
With the orientation, The agreement was achieved, the visit of the Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh set The important basis for transforming opportunities and potentials into specific, essential and effective cooperation projects in the coming time with three countries and regions ; In which, there is a breakthrough in economic cooperation, trade, investment, labor, especially in the pillars of energy cooperation, oil and gas, food, Halal field, emerging fields such as digital economy, green economy, circulating economy, shared economy, knowledge economy , night economy Education, tourism, people exchange ... to become a solid foundation for friendship and long -term cooperation with other countries.
The Prime Minister's visit Three countries and attend the 8th Future Initiative Conference (FII8) strongly promoted , creating favorable conditions to access new resources, valuable lessons, creating new motivation for traditional cooperation areas, promoting the exploration of potential areas, creating a firmly building political and external trust to pave the way for a new stage of cooperation between Vietnam and the three countries and the whole region.
This is a practical, vivid and effective implementation step of the Party and State's external policies , is the concretization of the viewpoint of independent , autonomous, multilateral , diversified , active and active international integration. and sustainable in the new era - the era of the Vietnamese nation ./.
Ha Van - Chinhphu.vn
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