Conference on economic diplomacy

On the evening of 21 January 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a virtual conference to implement economic diplomacy for economic recovery and socio-economic development in 2022, chaired by Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son.

This is the first time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds a conference on economic diplomacy with the participation of all Ambassadors and Consul Generals of Vietnam abroad, leaders of provinces and cities, and business associations to jointly evaluate the results of economic diplomacy in 2021 and plans for 2022. The conference was organized to concretize and implement the direction of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Foreign Affairs Conference, the Resolution and Action Plan of the 31st Diplomatic Conference on the pillar of economic diplomacy.

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Minh Vu, Head of the Steering Committee for Economic Diplomacy, emphasized that 2021 was the first year of implementing the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress, and with the collaboration of ministries and localities, the country has accomplished such highlights as vaccine diplomacy, promotion activities, and connections associated with high-level diplomatic activities.

At the conference, the delegates expressed their agreement with the report and stated that economic diplomacy deployment in 2021 had caught up with international requirements, situations and developments in a very proactive spirit, responding properly to the requirements of the Government, as well as the needs of the locality and businesses.

The context and situation in 2022 has a lot of changes compared to 2021, in which there are many opportunities but also many challenges. The world economy is forecasted to continue recovering, green development trends and digital economy are irreversible, hence it will still pose many difficulties for the Vietnamese economy. Therefore, economic diplomacy in 2022 needs to continue to be implemented with the drastic spirit of 2021, contributing to the realization of economic recovery and development goals, creating a foundation for our country's economy to have a break-through development for the period of 2021-2025.

Leaders of localities and businesses thanked the companionship and support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the past year, and proposed support to connect with foreign markets, information on international experiences in economic recovery and development, and industries such as hi-tech agriculture, tourism, climate change, etc.

Minister Bui Thanh Son praised economic diplomacy in 2021 for having achieved many outstanding accomplishments, making direct and effective contributions to the common efforts of the country on disease prevention and socio-economic development. The work of advising the government, supporting ministries and localities in maintaining and expanding investment activities of foreign enterprises in Vietnam had also been strongly deployed, through dialogue activities of the Prime Minister and FDI enterprises. The Minister affirmed that these achievements were due to the direct direction and participation of senior leaders, the close coordination and support of ministries, branches, localities and businesses as well as great efforts of our representative missions abroad.

Regarding the direction for 2022, Minister Bui Thanh Son emphasized that, in the context that countries had begun to open up and recover their economies, the trend of promoted tourism, green transition and transformation had been improved. Digital transformation and restructuring of the global supply chain would open up many new opportunities for localities and businesses. Therefore, the top priority of economic diplomacy in 2022 is to serve the goal of socio-economic recovery and development.

To implement the above goals, the Minister requested the Economic Diplomacy Steering Committee to complete the Economic Diplomacy Program in 2022 according to 8 groups of solutions, focusing on continuing to promote activities serving the policy of the government on safe, flexible adaptation and effective control of the COVID-19 epidemic; strengthen activities for economic recovery and development, make the most of new development resources such as government investment funds, green investment funds, regional and multilateral initiatives.

The Minister suggested that economic diplomacy should continue to expand and deepen economic relations with partners, form inter-sectoral coordination mechanisms to support the immediate implementation of a number of priority areas such as: science and technology, capacity building in healthcare, response to climate change, smart agriculture, training of high-quality human resources... to create a breakthrough for growth. In activities with foreign partners, it is necessary to continue promoting information work, connecting localities and businesses, especially on the occasion of high-level activities and organizing local promotion activities to enhance understanding and promote the potential of Vietnamese localities and businesses to international partners.