The Department of Commerce in China’s Guangxi province, in cooperation with the Asia-Africa Market Department at Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and Vinexad, held the Guangxi-Vietnam trade and economic cooperation conference in Hanoi on January 12.

The gathering was held within the framework of a working visit from January 10-13 by a delegation from Guangxi led by Mr. Diao Weihong, Deputy Director of the Department of Commerce. This is Guangxi’s first provincial-level delegation to come to Vietnam since the Covid-19 outbreak.

Vietnam has remained the Chinese province’s largest trade partner for 23 consecutive years, with two-way trade reaching $25.5 billion in the first eleven months of last year.

However, since the pandemic broke out, trade turnover via border gates by the two parties has reported continuous declines.

Mr. To Ngoc Son, Deputy Director of the Asia-Africa Market Department, said that Guangxi has played an important role for many years as a bridge in promoting bilateral trade cooperation between Vietnam and China. “However, we must also recognize that the exchange of goods between the two countries also faces difficulties,” he added. “The Department of Commerce in Guangxi province needs to coordinate with relevant agencies on its side to complete regulations for goods imported and exported, creating maximum convenience for customs clearance activities and restoring the status of clearances to levels prior to Covid-19.”

Ms. Trinh Thi Bich Ngoc, Deputy Head of the Department for International Relations at the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said VCCI is willing to coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to help Chinese enterprises strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Vietnamese partners. “It plans to implement a number of activities this year to help businesses in different cities and provinces promote exports to China and hopes to have the opportunity to cooperate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Guangxi Department of Commerce in this work,” she added.

Mr. Dieu Ve Hong, Deputy Director of the Guangxi Department of Commerce, said the province is willing to work with Vietnam to promote cooperation between the two sides and hopes that trade exchanges take place wider and deeper, bringing richer results.

Within the framework of the conference, businesses from the two sides signed cooperation agreements for eight categories of economic and trade cooperation. Three categories are framework cooperation agreements signed by State-owned enterprises, and five are annual order contracts between production and trading enterprises. The value of the commercial contracts is expected to reach CNY900 million ($133.6 million).

Guangxi has a total of 181 enterprises (non-financial type) investing in Vietnam with total investment of $1.26 billion, with $140 million disbursed so far. Vietnam has established a total of 57 foreign-invested enterprises in Guangxi, with total capital of $184 million.