Upgrading Economic, Investment and Trading Cooperation Relations with Vietnam by Cuban Partners

The title was a remark by Mr. Bernabe Garcia Valido, Consul General of Cuba to Ho Chi Minh city at a courtesy call to Mr. Vo Thanh Thong, Chairman of the People's Committee of Can Tho city on December 25^th, 2015 on the occasion of his participation in the 55^th Anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between Vietnam and Cuba (December 02^nd, 1960 – December 02^nd, 2015) and the 57^th of the Cuban National Day (January 01^st, 1959 – January 01^st, 2016).

Can Tho city leaders at the courtesy call with Consul General of Cuba on December 25^th, 2015

Via his speech at the event, Mr. Bernabe Garcia Valido emphasized that at current, the aforesaid relations have not developed as equally as those of the political ones; that they have not been comparable to concerns and existing potentials of both countries. As a result, during his tenure in Vietnam, Mr. Bernabe Garcia Valido is going to try his efforts to boost those relations with Vietnam in general and Can Tho in particular by offering favorable conditions to investors from Vietnam as well as Can Tho to implement investment projects and do business activities in Cuba.

Souvenirs exchange upon the completion of the courtesy call

In addition, Mr. Bernabe Garcia Valido also expressed his expectations for experience share and lessons  learnt with Vietnam in the future in the socio-economic development pathway of Cuba after the embargo removal by the USA after more than 50 years. He added that Vietnam and Cuba share a common ground in the relationship with the USA and both struggle with the embargo. However, Vietnam, with its consistency and strong efforts to steer the country towards the "market-oriented socialist economy", has gained a great number of  achievements. Cuba, therefore, would like to learn best practices from Vietnam in its tasks to develop the country in order to minimize mistakes in the future's renovation.

Responded to the remarks, Mr. Vo Thanh Thong shared his strong agreement by suggesting further exchanges of visits by delegations of both sides to learn good practices in sectors that Vietnam and Cuba are strong at such as agriculture, health, education and so on. Mr. Thong also agreed with his counterpart's comments on the current status of the economic, investment and trading relations between Vietnam and Cuba via an illustration of humble amounts of the bilateral trading revenues of the two countries in 2014 with more than 200 million USD and approximately 6 million USD gained by Vietnam and Cuba, respectively.

Beyond the above issues, Mr. Thong additionally added several activities to tighten and strengthen the existing wonderful traditional friendship and cooperation relation between Vietnam and Cuba in general and Can Tho city and the Consulate General of Cuba to Ho Chi Minh city. He expected that in the future, via his counterpart's supports, more cultural exchange, trading promotion activities and visits' by investors of both sides could be conducted for mutual understanding and exploration of available potentials of Vietnam and Cuba.