Vietnam to build strategy on developing border trade with China

Vietnam, this year, will map out a Vietnam-China border trade development strategy, according to the Trade Ministry on Friday.

Deputy Prime Minister of the Vietnamese Trade Ministry, Vu Khoan, has just required the ministry to cooperate with local relevant agencies in building the strategy which is supposed suitable to current economic and trade situations of the two countries such as the increased border trade, and the formation of two economic corridors involving the two Chinese southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi and five Vietnamese northern localities of Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Lao Cai and Lang Son, and the Beibu Gulf economic belt.

Also, the strategy must be suitable to current economic and trade situations of Vietnam and other countries, including the closer ties among members of the Greater Mekong Sub-region ( Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China's Yunnan province), the realization of the ASEAN-China free trade area, and Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization.

At a recent meeting of the China-Vietnam Joint Committee on Economic and Trade Cooperation, the two sides agreed to boost their economic and trade cooperation, and fulfill the two-way trade target of 15 billion US dollars by 2010.

The bilateral trade, which stood at 6.74 billion US dollars in 2004, up 45.3 percent against 2003, is expected to reach 8 billion dollars this year.

The free trade area between China and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formally launched in July. Since then both sides have gradually cut down tariffs on more than 7,000 goods items, so that all the duties will be removed by 2015 as targeted.

Source: Xinhua