Support localities to organize 70 activities connecting with international partners

Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu speaks at the conference. Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Aiming to enhance the position and prestige of the country from the outside

On the afternoon of September 19, at the online conference of the Prime Minister with the Heads of Vietnamese representative agencies abroad on promoting economic diplomacy to serve the country's development, Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu said that in recent times, in the face of profound fluctuations and crises in the economic, political, world and regional situations, in order to contribute to promoting and taking advantage of new opportunities for the country's development, with the close direction of the Party and State leaders, especially the Prime Minister, as well as the total focus and high determination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and representative agencies, economic diplomacy has been given special attention and implemented vigorously.

With the goal of "creating and maintaining a peaceful and stable environment", "mobilizing external resources to develop the country" and "enhancing the position and prestige of the country from the country"; along with the motto of "closely following the needs and practices of the country and the focus of the Government's management", "taking people, localities and enterprises as the center of service on the basis of taking efficiency and substance as the top criteria" and on the basis of being consistent with the strengths of partners and localities, economic diplomacy has achieved many outstanding results.

Specifically, first, in order to ensure the updating and practicality of guidelines and policies, to meet new situations and requirements, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has closely coordinated with ministries, branches and localities to summarize 12 years of implementing Directive 41. Based on the Prime Minister's direction on major orientations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has compiled, developed and submitted to the Secretariat to issue Directive No. 15-CT/TW dated August 10, 2022 on economic diplomacy, serving the country's development until 2030.

This is a strategic Directive, shaping the thinking, orientation and key tasks of economic diplomacy in the new situation.

Second, identify and resolutely and effectively implement the key points of economic diplomacy, closely following the needs and practices of the country and the focus of the Government's operations.

From focusing on vaccine diplomacy and medical diplomacy in 2020 and 2021, by 2022, economic diplomacy has rapidly shifted to serving economic recovery and development, contributing to minimizing the impacts of the extremely complicated international situation on the country's security and development environment.

Promote economic and trade cooperation

In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also proactively coordinated with ministries and branches to promote and deepen economic and trade cooperation and remove obstacles in cooperation with partners in both depth and breadth with key partners through high-level foreign affairs activities. Notably, the Prime Minister's visit to the United States reached 25 cooperation agreements; promoted market expansion into the EU, took advantage of the EVFTA; attracted investment...

Support key and struggling economic sectors and fields, localities and enterprises in trade promotion, investment, export promotion, especially agricultural products, tourism promotion, labor cooperation, education - training, improving the quality of human resources, cooperation in digital transformation, energy transformation, mobilizing resources for sustainable development....

"Typically, supporting localities to organize about 70 activities connecting with international partners and signing 40 international cooperation documents; coordinating with ministries and branches to organize many activities related to domestic needs such as the Tourism Opening Conference on March 15, 2022, Agricultural Product Promotion Conferences, cooperation on expanding the Halal market, building a strategy for exporting agricultural products to the EU market, participating in negotiations on the Fair Energy Transition Partnership with G7 countries, attracting investment in high-tech and green transformation fields...", Deputy Minister Nguyen Minh Vu said.

In the context of economic opening, Vietnamese representative agencies have also proactively organized hundreds of activities in the past 8 months to promote trade, investment, and promote the country's image...

Third, economic policy research, consulting and advisory work are proactively and promptly deployed in the context of the world situation evolving more rapidly, complicatedly and unpredictably than in 2021.

In addition, the diplomatic sector has also coordinated with ministries and branches to promptly recommend to the Politburo our policies on many new issues and new initiatives, ensuring balance and harmony with major partners and in accordance with economic diplomacy.

Making economic cooperation the core of high-level foreign affairs activities

In the context of the world economy forecast to continue to face difficulties, with multi-dimensional impacts on the Vietnamese economy, implementing Directive No. 15 of the Secretariat and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to further develop economic diplomacy to serve the country's development, Deputy Minister Nguyen Minh Vu proposed to quickly disseminate and concretize the guiding ideas and contents of Directive 15 of the Secretariat on economic diplomacy to each Party unit at all levels at home and abroad; develop a Government action plan in the fourth quarter of 2022; support ministries, branches and localities in developing action plans to implement the Directive.

In addition, economic cooperation should become the central content in high-level and all-level diplomatic activities to support export promotion, remove difficulties and bottlenecks so that economic cooperation with partners can truly go into depth. In particular, economic cooperation should become the core content in high-level foreign affairs activities. The bottlenecks in cooperation projects with key partners should be cleared soon on the basis of harmonizing national interests with the interests of partners.

Focus on supporting the attraction of high-quality investment and attracting international resources in areas that create new growth drivers. Promote corporate diplomacy at high and all levels; attract foreign corporations and enterprises to increase investment and technology transfer; promptly take advantage of the trend of chain shift, especially in high-value segments; attract resources to implement our commitments at COP26; promote the formation of international cooperation frameworks in digital transformation, digital economy, energy partnerships, etc.

Promote international economic integration and linkage on the basis of ensuring and consistently implementing the policy of multilateralization, diversification, proactively and actively integrating internationally, especially economic cooperation activities within the framework of the United Nations, ASEAN, APEC, ASEM, Mekong, WTO and closely following the developments of economic cooperation and linkage in the region and globally... proposing appropriate policies in participating in new initiatives.

Promoting the network of representative agencies, enhancing the timeliness, sensitivity, quality and depth of research, forecasting and consulting work, practically serving the Government's management work and major strategies, especially building an independent and self-reliant economy, associated with proactive and active international integration...