Israel’s Minister of Economics Naftali Bennett and Minister of Science and TechnologyNguyễn Quân in the signing ceremony (Photo: Bùi Hoàn/Vietnam+)
Delivering a speech in the signing ceremony, Minister Nguyễn Quân affirmed that the core factor of economic and commercial relations between Vietnam and Israel is S&T, at the same time he hoped to have more comprehensive cooperation with Israel in this field. Specifically, the two parties would not only exchange scientists but also expand into other fields as human resource training and research cooperation. In addition, Vietnam hoped to cooperate with Israel in two fields: technique –high technology in agriculture and safety –network security.
Minister Nguyễn Quân also committed to create the most favorable conditions for Israel’s enterprises to invest in Vietnam, especially in high technology field.
Since the establishment of relationshipsin 1993, the cooperation between the two countries have achieved good development steps in all field but they are not equivalent to potentials of the two parties. The Vietnamese side hoped to soon negotiate and sign the Free Trade Agreement with Israel.
On his own, Israel’s Minister of Economics Naftali Bennett desired that the bilateral trade turnovers would exceed the number of approximately USD 1 billion/year as currently.
According to him, Vietnam has kept many opportunities for Israel’s exporters. This high-level economic session between the two countries would open the way for Israel’s other exporters and create the leverage for economic relations with Vietnam, help Israel achieve a more sustainable position in Asia and in the world.
Having the same opinion with Minister Bennett, Israel’s Economic and Trade Counsellor in VietnamTzafrir Assaf said that Vietnam has become a very attractive place for small and medium enterprises.
Vietnamese people don’t like cheap technology products and are ready to invest in Israel’s reliable and renovated solutions.
Small and medium exporters have been successfully in penetrating into Vietnam’s market with support of local distributors. Vietnam’s economy has provided Israel’s enterprises with significant opportunities and the visit paid by Minister Nguyễn Quân was to create the leverage for these opportunities.
According to statistics of Israel’s Ministry of Economics, export turnovers of this country to Vietnam reached USD 702 million in 2013 and USD 745 million in 2012; while import turnovers reached USD 413.2 million in 2013 and USD 318 million in 2012. These statistics show that Israel’s import turnover from Vietnam has increased about 30%, mainly including products of telecommunication, agriculture and textile fields, in which importing textile and shoe products has increased the most. Israel’s leading export products are electronics, chemical, fertilizers, paint and telecommunication products.
The GlobalCompetiveness Report announced newly in the World Economic Forum has ranked Vietnam as 68 among the total of 144 nations. This report shows that Vietnam has been a developing market with the population of high intellectual level and high rate of women participating in the labor force. These are combined factors to identify Vietnam as one "Asian tiger" in term of growth(the estimated growth of this year is 5.5%).