NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue at the forum in Bangkok on December 8. (Photo: VNA)

He delivered a speech at a policy and legal forum on promoting bilateral economic, trade, and investment partnerships held in Bangkok, part of his official visit to Thailand.

The top legislator perceived that much room remains for bilateral economic, trade, and investment ties, and to turn these areas into a true cooperation pillar, the two countries should continue reforming their mindsets and visions in the spirit of mutual trust, sincerity, openness, higher sense of responsibility, more effectiveness, and win-win cooperation, and consider this as the invariable factor to respond to the variables in the world and the region.

Vietnam and Thailand are not rivals, he stated, explaining that their economic structures share many similarities and also differences that are complementary to each other.

With regard to similarities, the two countries should work together in the principle of mutual benefit to renew existing value chains and set up new and strategic ones with higher added value to join in regional and global supply chains. For example, they can cooperate in rice trading, electric vehicle production, and the semiconductor industry, he suggested.

Vietnam is running a trade deficit with Thailand, but when Thailand’s investment in Vietnam increases in the coming time, bilateral trade will become more balanced, he went on.

Hue said to foster economic, trade, and investment relations more strongly, the two countries’ parliaments and governments need to increase sharing experience in building policies and laws related to enterprises, investment, and business to adapt to the fast-changing science, technology, and international environment.

Both sides should step up connecting the two economies by fruitfully carrying out the action plan for implementing the enhanced strategic partnership for 2022 - 2027 and the “Three Connections” initiative, especially connecting small- and medium-sized enterprises and localities of the countries, including central provinces of Vietnam and northeastern ones of Thailand; connecting their road and waterway infrastructure; continuing to develop the East - West and southern economic corridors; and opening more direct air routes, he noted

Vietnam and Thailand should bolster Government-to-Government, association-to-business, and business-to-business cooperation to facilitate trade and investment flows, and bring into play each country’s strengths in the new context, he continued, adding that Vietnam encourages Thai firms to invest in such areas as green energy, automobile, food, processing, textile - garment, electronic materials, chemical, and industrial park infrastructure.

They also need to capitalise on the free trade agreements to which both are parties to promote trade in goods, enhance financial and monetary cooperation, open their markets and create more optimal conditions for each other’s businesses, and strive to raise bilateral trade to 25 billion USD and higher in a balanced and mutually beneficial manner. Besides, they should actively coordinate and consult with each other, particularly at multilateral business cooperation mechanisms, according to Chairman Hue.

The Vietnamese NA has and will always stand side by side with the entire policy system to issue many appropriate policies and create a transparent, equal, and comprehensive legal framework to provide favourable conditions for foreign investors, including those from Thailand, to operate successfully in Vietnam, which always views businesses’ success as its own, he added.

At the forum, the NA leader witnessed the launch of the Vietnam - Thai Chamber of Commerce./.