On the morning of March 13 local time, at the headquarters of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in Washington DC, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien had a meeting with Chief of the United States Trade Representative Jamieson L. Greer to discuss promoting bilateral economic and trade cooperation between Vietnam and the United States.
This is the first important, direct and official working session at the ministerial level between the two countries since the US had a new administration.
At the beginning of the meeting, the two sides expressed their delight at the fact that after 30 years of establishing diplomatic relations, 10 years of establishing the Comprehensive Partnership and 2 years of upgrading the relationship to the level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the relationship between the two countries has been developing increasingly positively and firmly in all fields.
The economic-trade-investment pillar plays a key role in promoting the overall bilateral relationship. Bilateral trade turnover in 2024 will reach nearly 150 billion USD, making the United States the second largest trading partner and one of Vietnam's most important export markets.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien affirmed that Vietnam always considers the United States a leading important partner, and wishes to promote the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries to develop strongly, substantially, deeply and sustainably, contributing to enhancing understanding and strategic trust between the two countries.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said that the economies and import-export structure of Vietnam and the United States are complementary, so trade turnover between the two countries has increased rapidly and stably over the past many years, ensuring important foundations and maintaining national interests in bilateral cooperation.
Vietnam's consistent policy is to wish to build a harmonious, sustainable, stable, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship with the United States; at the same time, it has no intention of creating any obstacles that could harm workers or the economic and national security of the United States.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien also informed about specific groups of solutions that the Vietnamese Government is proactively implementing to promote economic, trade and investment relations with the United States in a comprehensive, harmonious and sustainable manner; requested that the two countries' technical levels continue to exchange information so that the United States can soon recognize Vietnam's market economy status; said that this would be an important decision, commensurate with the stature of the current Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer highly appreciated the proactive coordination and frank, responsible, and goodwill views of the Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade in clearly understanding and directly addressing the direction of handling current US concerns.
Mr. Greer said the new US trade policy is designed purely to further promote trade and investment, protect US economic security, national security and workers; not to harm partner countries.
However, in trade exchanges, the parties must achieve commensurate economic benefits; accordingly, Vietnam needs to have stronger solutions to open the market and improve the trade balance in the coming time.
Referring to concerns about the developments in US tariff policies, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that this is the time for Vietnam and the US to work closely together to create a fair and sustainable business environment through proactively reviewing and considering the removal of trade barriers that hinder investment and business activities; building an effective control mechanism for trade fraud, origin fraud, and illegal transshipment.
At the end of the meeting, the two sides agreed to conduct regular consultations at the technical level to promptly resolve specific issues that arise in order to build a harmonious, sustainable, and stable economic and trade relationship in line with the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.
On the same afternoon, at the headquarters of the US Department of Energy (DOE) in Washington DC, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien had a working session with US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to discuss bilateral economic and trade cooperation between Vietnam and the US, focusing on specific measures to promote comprehensive cooperation in the energy sector between the two countries.
Speaking at the meeting, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien affirmed that Vietnam always considers the United States a leading important partner, and wishes to promote the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries to develop strongly, substantially, deeply and effectively, contributing to enhancing understanding and strategic trust between the two countries.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said that the economies and import-export structure of Vietnam and the United States are complementary, so trade turnover between the two countries has increased rapidly and stably over the past many years, ensuring important foundations and maintaining national interests in bilateral cooperation.
Vietnam's consistent policy is to wish to build a harmonious, sustainable, stable, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship with the United States; at the same time, it has no intention of creating any obstacles that could harm workers or the economic and national security of the United States.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien also informed about specific groups of solutions that the Vietnamese Government is proactively implementing to promote economic, trade and investment relations with the United States in a comprehensive, harmonious and sustainable manner, especially cooperation in the energy sector - an important pillar of bilateral economic and trade cooperation.
In the energy sector, sharing about the need to develop energy sources to meet Vietnam's high growth rate in the coming time, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said that according to Vietnam's Electricity Plan, by 2030, Vietnam needs to triple the total capacity of the entire system (ie, increase by 150-160 GW in 5 years), at the same time, Vietnam is also making efforts to transform the electricity structure to achieve zero carbon by 2050.
Therefore, the demand for capital, technology, equipment, raw materials and fuels is very large to develop gas-fired power complexes, nuclear power plants and power transmission systems, and develop smart grids...
Vietnam's policy is to consider the United States as one of the important energy sources to help ensure energy security and wishes to promote and further strengthen cooperation with US investors in this field. Increasing the import of machinery, equipment, and raw materials from the United States will also help balance the trade balance between the two countries in a harmonious and sustainable manner.
For his part, US Energy Secretary Chris Wrights said that US energy companies are very interested in the Vietnamese market; hope that Vietnam will create favorable conditions for important US projects; have appropriate policies and solutions to develop diverse power sources, thereby creating a larger import flow from the US.
The two Ministers agreed to exchange technical levels and agree on the possibility of signing a cooperation agreement in the energy sector to promote cooperation between the two countries in the future.
The two Ministers also discussed a number of specific power development projects in Vietnam and solutions to promote the early implementation of these projects.
At the end of the meeting, Minister Chris Wrights happily accepted the invitation to visit Vietnam at the earliest opportunity to further discuss cooperation in the energy sector between Vietnam and the United States.
Also in the afternoon of the same day, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien attended and witnessed the signing ceremony and announcement of cooperation agreements and contracts for the purchase of machinery, equipment, raw materials, services and goods between Vietnamese and US enterprises.
Also attending the event were Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Vietnam to the United States Nguyen Quoc Dung, a delegation from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, representatives of the Vietnam National Energy and Industry Group (PVN) and its member companies, Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN), Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex), Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group (TKV), Masan Group and US partners.
On the US side, there were Mr. David Gainer, Director of the Office, US Department of State and Mr. Ken Vincent, Director of Asian Affairs, US Department of Energy, who attended and witnessed the signing ceremony.
Speaking at the signing and announcement ceremony, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien affirmed that after 30 years of establishing diplomatic relations, 10 years of establishing Comprehensive Partnership and 2 years of upgrading relations to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the relationship between the two countries has been developing increasingly positively and steadily in all fields. The economic-trade-investment pillar plays a key role in promoting the overall bilateral relationship.
In terms of trade, bilateral trade turnover in 2024 will reach nearly 150 billion USD, up 20.5% over the same period last year. The United States has become the second largest trading partner and one of Vietnam's most important export markets and is gradually becoming a source of machinery, equipment, science and technology, and energy products for Vietnam.
In terms of investment, the United States continues to be one of Vietnam's leading investment partners, with most major US corporations having a presence and effectively investing in Vietnam, while more and more Vietnamese enterprises have invested in the US market.
By this time in 2025, more than 100 Vietnamese businesses have registered to attend the Select USA 2025 event to learn about investment and business opportunities in the United States.
Sharing the results of working with US agencies, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien said that the potential for cooperation between Vietnam and the US is still very large, especially in areas such as science and technology, innovation, research and development; development of chip industry, semiconductor, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IOT); new energy, renewable energy; finance, financial centers; biotechnology, healthcare, etc.
Vietnam hopes that the United States will continue to create conditions and support businesses of the two countries to expand cooperation and effective business investment, especially projects in science, technology, and innovation.
In the spirit of further promoting bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation between Vietnam and the United States, under the witness of Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, many important cooperation agreements with a total value of 4.15 billion USD were signed.
PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (PVGas) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Conoco Phillips Group; PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (PVGas) signed an MOU with Excelerate Group on a number of long-term LNG purchase and sale agreements; Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Joint Stock Company (BSR) signed a consulting contract with Kellogg Brown & Root Group (KBR) for a pre-feasibility study on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
The agreement between BSR and KBR is a strategic step, helping BSR access advanced technologies and technical solutions for energy transition and carbon emission reduction; at the same time, it is also an opportunity for BSR to expand investment in new energy and sustainable fuel projects, contributing significantly to the energy transition and carbon emission reduction roadmap, promoting the energy transition process in Vietnam and globally.
In addition, PetroVietnam Power Corporation (PVPower) and GE Vernova signed an MOU on purchasing GE equipment and services for gas-fired power plants developed by PVPower.
With this new memorandum of understanding, PVPower and GE Vernova continue to affirm their shared commitment to developing sustainable and advanced solutions for the power and oil and gas industries.
Through this, PVPower will seize new opportunities in the context of globalization and energy transformation, while affirming the Group's position in the race for digital technology and sustainable energy.
Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) has signed a MOU with three leading US Ethanol suppliers, the US Grains Council (USGC), Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), and Growth Energy (GROWTH) on ethanol supply to establish a cooperation agreement and expand bilateral trade between PETROLIMEX and the US ethanol industry.
In addition, Petrolimex also signed an MOU with Marquis Energy on facilitating transactions and importing biofuels. These are very meaningful cooperation agreements in the context of Vietnam accelerating the roadmap to increase the rate of biofuel use.
Thus, the total value of economic and trade agreements signed between Vietnamese and US enterprises is expected to be implemented in the period from 2025 to about 90.3 billion USD, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for workers of both countries.
The contracts and agreements signed and to be implemented from 2025 are worth 50.15 billion USD, focusing on aircraft procurement, aviation services, oil and gas exploitation, and import of petrochemical products; the contracts and agreements signed on March 13 are worth 4.15 billion USD; the agreements being negotiated by businesses of both sides and expected to be signed in the near future are worth about 36 billion USD.
The signing of these agreements and memorandums of understanding is a practical action to promote economic, trade and investment cooperation between the two countries in a substantive, increasingly in-depth and effective manner; at the same time, contributing towards a harmonious and sustainable trade balance.
Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/viet-nam-hoa-ky-ky-ket-va-cong-bo-nhieu-thoa-thuan-hop-tac-kinh-te.html
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