President Vo Van Thuong commended the continued, meaningful contributions of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) to national construction and development while addressing a ceremony in Hanoi on April 26 marking its 60th anniversary.

Besides the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that have been signed and put into practice, which have created many new development motivations, market expansion and diversification; activities to initiate negotiations for new agreements have also been initiated to open up new opportunities for businesses to seize the opportunity.

The food industry is one of the key industries prioritized for development by the Government of Vietnam from now to 2025, with a vision to 2035, playing an important role in socio-economic development, promoting the commodity exports.

Four types of fresh Vietnamese fruits, namely mango, longan, lychee, and dragon fruit, have been exported to the Australian market. However, expanding market share for these products is not easy because Australia sets strict requirements on labelling and food safety; some standards are even higher than those of the US and EU.

The Informal Working Group on Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) on 26 April discussed the benefits of digitalisation for small business, the role of intellectual property rights in facilitating small business access to finance, and how MSMEs deal with sustainability standards. The Group appointed Ambassador Matthew Wilson of Barbados as its new coordinator.

The Vietnamese Trade Office in India and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on April 26 organised a webinar on BIS’s regulations and certification procedures for foreign manufacturers, attracting the participation of more than 60 Vietnamese firms.

Two-way trade between Viet Nam and Argentina has increased strongly to US$4.88 billion in 2022, making Argentina the fifth largest trade partner of Viet Nam in the Latin American region and Viet Nam the sixth biggest trade partner of Argentina globally.

In the first quarter of 2023, the average export price of Vietnamese rice reached US$529/ton, an increase of nearly 9 percent against the same period last year.

The Vietnamese Trade Office in Singapore has unveiled its intention to beef up Vietnam-Singapore business connection and the volume of Vietnamese exports to the Singaporean market.

The EFTA includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland as its members and is a non-European Union (EU) bloc.