The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has proposed to the government to sign a bilateral preferential trade agreement with China to boost bilateral trade and investment.

VCCI said many companies from both countries, which will implement projects on trade and investment shortly, want to enjoy preferential treatment included in the agreement, local newspaper Investment reported Friday.

Among them, the Vietnam Steel Corporation is working with a Chinese partner on a project worth 200 million US dollars to increase the steel billet capacity of the Thai Nguyen steel complex in northern Thai Nguyen province by 500,000 tons a year.

The Vietnam Rubber Corporation is also under negotiations with its Chinese partner on exporting 10,000 tons of rubber worth some 9 million dollars to China in 2004, and another 14,000 tons of theproduct totaling 18 million dollars in 2005.

China and Vietnam, whose two-way trade stood at about 4.8 billion dollars in 2003, target to gain the bilateral turnovers of5 billion dollars in 2005 and 10 billion dollars in 2010.

Vietnam mainly exports rubber, cashew nuts, tea, fruits, vegetables, crude oil, coal and seafood to China, and imports Chinese motorbikes, fertilizers, machines, pharmaceuticals, petroleum products and construction materials.

Investors from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong had 29 investment projects worth 49.7 million dollars in Vietnam in the first five months of this year. By late last month, they had had 571 projects with total registered capital of nearly 3.6 billion dollars in the country.

Source: Xinhua