Vietnam has become one of the 12 key markets in the Czech Republic’s 2012-2020 foreign trade policy, while the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade has chosen the Czech Republic as a potential market for trade promotion. This offers opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to increase their exports to the Czech Republic and other European markets.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade’s statistics showed that Vietnamese businesses exported goods worth an estimated US$221 million to the Czech Republic in 2014, up 22.2 percent from 2013. In the first 11 months 2014, they exported footwear worth US$35.48 million to the Czech Republic, up 24.2 percent from the same period last year and accounting for 18 percent of Vietnam’s export revenue to this market. In 2014, seafood exports to the Czech Republic grew 141.81 percent in value, while handbag, wallet, suitcase, hat and umbrella exports to this market increased 39.7 percent in value compared to 2013.
As of December 2014, there were 35 effective Czech investment projects in Vietnam, totaling more than US$66 million in capital, mainly in glass manufacturing, beer, electrical equipment, food processing, construction materials, and mining.
According to Vietnamese Trade Counselor in the Czech Republic Nguyen Thang Long, the Czech economy is highly open and depends largely on Czech businesses’ foreign market approach and exploitation capability. Czech importers always look for potential trade partners in Asia including Vietnam.
The two countries’ economic structures complement each other. Vietnam needs equipment, machinery and high technology to improve product quality and join the global supply chain, while the Czech Republic is capable of manufacturing machinery and equipment for development of the world’s leading industries. Meanwhile, Vietnamese seafood, footwear and textiles and garments have attracted consumers in the Czech market.
Approved strategies and EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that is expected to be signed in the first half of 2015 will help strengthen Vietnam’s role as a bridge for businesses from the Czech Republic and other European countries to penetrate the 600-million-people ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) market, as well as the role of the Czech Republic as a gateway for Vietnamese businesses to increase the trade in goods with the 500-million-people plus EU market, Long said.
Actually, Vietnamese businesses have continued to find it difficult to export goods to the Czech Republic in particular and the EU in general due to the high quality and food hygiene and safety requirements and price competitions. Therefore, the promotion of trade and investment through forums offer a practical solution to increase bilateral trade.
Vietnam always welcomes Czech investors and businesses who come to the country for looking for partners, market research, building joint ventures to manufacture and distribute products in Vietnam or export to the Czech Republic and third countries. “Governments and the Ministries of Industry and Trade of the two countries are highly determined to strengthen bilateral trade and investment relations through a number of projects that are being discussed by the two sides and expected to reach positive achievements in 2015,” Long said.
Czech Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Pavel Solc emphasized at a Vietnam-Czech Trade Exchange Forum recently sponsored by the Vietnamese Embassy in the Czech Republic that the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade is committed to supporting Vietnamese and Czech businesses to cooperate with each other in the key sectors of energy and mechanical equipment and machinery manufacturing, chemical, environmental industry and medical equipment, and that the ministry also supported the transformation of the trade structure in conjunction with market demands to create greater opportunities for connecting the two countries’ businesses in the implementation of large economic projects.
(Source VEN)