Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s official visit to Australia is expected to create new momentum for the bilateral relations, including their trade ties.

The PM left Hanoi on March 4 morning for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of ASEAN-Australia dialogue relations, and official visits to Australia and New Zealand from March 5 – 11.

Over the past years, trade between Vietnam and Australia has grown strongly thanks to free trade agreements (FTAs). The General Department of Vietnam Customs reported that the two-way trade stood at nearly 14 billion USD last year, with Vietnam’s exports reaching 5.2 billion USD.

With the figures, the two countries were the 10th biggest trade partners of each other in the year, according to the Asia-Africa Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

Notably, Australia supplied important materials for a number of Vietnam's industrial and energy sectors such as coal, accounting for up to 45.77% of the Southeast Asian nation’s total import of the material, and ores and minerals 44.78%.

In the first month of this year, the bilateral trade was valued at 1.25 billion USD, up 43.4% year-on-year, said Nguyen Phu Hoa, head of the Vietnamese Trade Office in Australia.

Vietnam’s major exports included phone products and components, machinery, electronic components, computers, crude oil, garment-textiles, footwear and aquatic products.

Meanwhile, it mainly imported coal, ores, cotton, wheat, metal and vegetables from Australia.

Hoa attributed the result to the two governments’ attention to the economic-trade ties, considering them a crucial pillar in the bilateral relations, and the most important in the Plan of Action for the Strategic Partnership for 2020–2023.

The ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), to which both are signatories, have also played a role in the growing economic and trade ties.

Furthermore, for the first time, the two countries have agreed on and released a plan to implement the Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy (EEES) announced by their Prime Ministers in November 2021 with specific measures until 2025.

There is firm ground for Vietnam to be optimistic about the prospects for economic and trade cooperation with Australia as the two economies are reciprocal, Hoa affirmed.

According to Nguyen Dinh Tung, General Director of Vina T&T Group, his company and GAP Cu Lao Giang Cooperative shipped 6 tonnes of mango from the Mekong Delta province of An Giang to Australia in January.

Nguyen Nam Phuong Thao, Deputy Director of Hoang Phat Fruit Co., Ltd, said apart from traditional markets like China, her company has exported fresh fruits to others, including Australia and New Zealand.

The MoIT’s Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (VIETRADE) said it has sent a delegation to Australia from March 1-9, which is engaging in a wide range of trade and investment promotion activities in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

The Vietnamese Trade Office pledged to help businesses maximise advantages generated by the above-said FTAs, and advised Vietnamese firms to study carefully the market, local law and Australians’ taste, and pay more attention to packaging and product quality./.

VNA