Prime Minister Le Minh Hung emphasized the significant potential for cooperation between Vietnam and China during a meeting with Chinese enterprises on 26/8. He called for "more qualitative, efficient, and substantive" cooperation and investment from businesses of both nations in this new phase. He urged Chinese enterprises to view Vietnam as a long-term hub for investment, production, and business, stressing the need to enhance the quality of capital flows, advanced technology, and its broader impact on domestic businesses.

The Vietnamese government actively encourages strategic infrastructure connectivity, particularly the Vietnam-China railway, urban railways, logistics, and smart border gates. Vietnam also seeks high-quality investment from Chinese investors in key sectors such as clean energy; modern processing and manufacturing; digital economy, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, 5G, and big data.

The prime minister expressed his expectation for Chinese investors to bolster research and development (R&D) activities, foster innovation, facilitate technology transfer, and enhance human resource training. Furthermore, they are encouraged to create opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises to integrate more deeply into global supply chains, thereby increasing local content rates. He also urged investors to introduce advanced technology and international management capabilities into large-scale projects, ensuring the creation of high-quality products. "Each project must be effective for the investor, while also contributing to Vietnam's production capacity, technology, employment, budget, and the development of Vietnamese enterprises," the prime minister stated.

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung speaks at a meeting with Chinese enterprises investing in Vietnam. *Photo: VGP*

During the meeting, Chinese enterprises affirmed Vietnam's importance as a market, outlining plans for investment expansion and new cooperation projects. They also presented various challenges and requested the government, ministries, and local authorities to address them. In response, the prime minister instructed the Ministry of Finance and other relevant ministries to decisively resolve the 44 recommendations from Chinese businesses, preventing any evasion of responsibility. For issues involving multiple agencies, a lead unit, deadline, and clear responsibilities for resolution must be established. Problems exceeding ministerial authority should be promptly reported to the Government and the prime minister, along with proposed solutions.

Chinese enterprises investing in Vietnam attend the meeting. *Photo: VGP*

China stands as one of Vietnam's largest foreign investors. In the first 7 months of this year, total registered capital from Chinese investors in Vietnam reached nearly 3,7 billion USD. Chinese enterprises also led in the number of new investment projects, initiating approximately 850 ventures. Cumulatively, by the end of July, more than 7.000 projects from Chinese investors remained active in Vietnam, with a total registered capital nearing 37 billion USD. This capital flow is increasingly concentrated in processing, manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, electronics, and technology sectors. Two-way trade between Vietnam and China amounted to approximately 184,3 billion USD, marking an increase of over 35% compared to the same period last year. China is Vietnam's largest trade partner, and Vietnam is China's largest partner within ASEAN.

Phuong Dung