Speaking at the event, Robert Kurilo, head of the REC’s representative office in Hanoi, said that Vietnam and Russia have witnessed a sharp increase in two-way trade since they became members of the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Free Trade Agreement in 2016.
There remains huge potential for bilateral cooperation in the fields of tourism, agriculture, and oil and gas, he said, adding that Russian companies wish to work with Vietnamese partners to develop common tourism products which will attract visitors to travel between the two countries.
Highlighting Vietnam’s abundance of delicious farm produce and fruits, as well as Russia’s high consumption demand, Kurilo said that Russia is in the process of increasing its imports of fruits from Southeast Asian nations, hailing this as a good opportunity for Vietnamese firms to boost their exports into the Russian market.
Gostevskikh Mikhail, Managing Director of the Siberia company, said Russian businesses see Vietnam as an attractive destination to implement their new trade development strategies, citing Vietnam as one of the countries with the fastest pace of growth in Asia and the consistent improvements to Vietnamese people’s living standards, which has resulted in an increasing demand for high-quality, safe, and healthy products.
Vietnam is not only a potential economic partner of Russia but also a very close friend of the Russian people, Mikhail said, expressing his belief that with the efforts made by the state agencies and enterprises of both sides, two-way trade between Vietnam and Russia will achieve positive results in the time ahead.
At the forum, Russian firms agreed that there remains space for the development of trade cooperation between Vietnam and Russia, and asked the two sides’ trade promotion agencies to organise business connection and trade promotion programmes, with the intention of creating opportunities for Vietnamese and Russian companies to meet and establish long-term and effective cooperation agreements, for the mutual development of both countries.
