Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)The statement was made by Dinh Thi Hoang Yen, FirstSecretary in charge of trade affairs at the Vietnamese Embassy in Austria, while talking to Vietnam News Agency reporters in Europe on thethreshold of President Vo Van Thuong’s official visit to the European country.
According to Yen, trade relations between Vietnam andAustria began in the 1970s, and continuously grew at an average rate of 12% peryear from 2007 to 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak, with the trade balancealways tilting towards Vietnam. Two-way trade reached 2.79 billion USD lastyear, down 0.2% year-on-year.
Austria is currently Vietnam's 7th largest tradingpartner in the European Union (EU) and 9th in Europe, while Vietnam is Austria'stop trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In the structure of Vietnam's exports to Austria, mobilephones and spare parts account for 80-90% of the value, followed by textiles,footwear, machinery and iron and steel products. Meanwhile, Vietnam mainly importsfrom Austria machinery and equipment (accounting for 30-40% of the totalvalue), pharmaceutical products, fibers and computer components. In recentyears, glass products have become Austria’s strong export to Vietnam.
Yen forecast that in the coming time, potential areas ofcooperation between the two countries can be industry 4.0, automobile industry,agricultural industry, environmental industry, green energy, healthcare,forestry and wood processing, construction materials, vocational training andtourism.
Currently, Austria is short of human resources in manyfields, especially healthcare. Therefore, the two sides can cooperate on labourin the fields of nursing and information technology to implement the Memorandumof Understanding on Cooperation in E-Commerce and Industry 4.0 signed betweenthe Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Austrian Ministry forDigital and Economic Affairs, the official added./.
VNA
