MOSCOW: Russia-Vietnam bilateral trade is expected to hit $10 billion by 2020, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development said in a statement on Friday.
First Deputy Minister Alexey Likhachev held a meeting on trade, economic and investment cooperation with a delegation from the Economic Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, led by Deputy Head of the Department with the rank of Deputy Minister, Pham Xuan Duong.
“[We] consider a turnover of $10 billion by 2020 as quite achievable… According to Vietnamese experts, Vietnam’s exports to Russia alone might more than double,” Likhachev said, as quoted in the statement.
Likhachev said the volume of bilateral trade has been growing on average by 20 percent annually over the last 5 years. According to Russian statistics, the volume of trade between Russia and Vietnam for the first 6 months of 2015 stands at $1.6 billion.
In May, Vietnam signed a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, a bloc aimed at fostering economic integration between its member states, comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. According to Likhachev, the agreement will accelerate the growth of mutual trade between the EEU countries and Vietnam.
Likhachev also called for a bilateral intergovernmental agreement on the industrial assembly of motor vehicles in Vietnam to be concluded quickly, adding that several Russian automotive companies are expected to enter the Vietnamese market.
According to Likhachev, Russia-Vietnam joint investments are mainly focused on the oil and gas industry, especially on the Vietnamese shelf.
