PM attends Viet Nam-U.S. trade, investment, tourism promotion conference

The event was jointly held by Viet Nam Airlines, Saigon Tourists, and Thien Minh Group with an aim to foster cooperation between businesses of the two countries.

It also sent out a message to the wider world that Viet Nam has reopened its economy after two-year fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing the conference, PM Pham briefed about Viet Nam's development orientations, Viet Nam-U.S. relations, and ASEAN-U.S. partnership.

Pham affirmed Viet Nam consistently sticks to the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralization of external relations, being a good friend, a trusted partner, and a responsible member of the international community.

The Southeast Asian country determines to build up an independent and self-reliant economy in pursuit of proactive and active international integration process, the Government chief added.

He went on to say that economic, trade, investment and tourism cooperation is an important pillar of the Viet Nam-U.S. relations. Last year, the two-way trade reached US$112 billion, accounting for one third of the American side' trade volume with ASEAN.

The bilateral trade expanded around 17-20 percent annually. The U.S. is Viet Nam's second largest trade partner while Viet Nam is the 9^th biggest trade partner of the U.S.

Pham expressed his belief that the economic ties will continue thriving in the future and called on American investors to Viet Nam's top priority areas like capital market development, digital transformation, energy transition, climate change, among others.

The PM also expected American partners to assist Viet Nam in designing policies, luring financial capital, developing human resources and infrastructure, and enhancing governance capacity.

On tourism, the U.S. continues to be one of Viet Nam's top tourist source markets, registering a 11 percent growth between 2014 and 2019.

Thanks to its own efforts and valuable support from international friends and partners, Viet Nam has contained the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened borders to foreign arrivals, said Pham.

American tourists were the first to come to Viet Nam after the Government decided to resume international tourism from March 2022, according to Pham./.