Economic Diplomacy: Positioning the Nation for Optimal Advantage!

WVR - On the eve of the Lunar New Year, in an interview with The World & Vietnam Report, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Hang emphasized that economic diplomacy has become increasingly practical and systematic, in line with the “three clarities” principle - clear results, clear outputs and clear contributions to socio-economic development – helping to strengthen the foundation for the nation to step into a new era, era of the nation’s rise.
Economic Diplomacy: Positioning the Nation for Optimal Advantage!
Economic Diplomacy: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highlights economic diplomacy as a "bright spot" in foreign affairs. (Photo: Tuan Anh)

At the 2024 Conference on Economic Diplomacy Review and 2025 Key Priorities, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highlighted economic diplomacy (ED) as a "bright spot" in foreign affairs. What significant and substantive achievements in economic diplomacy have contributed to the country's socio-economic achievements over the past year?

Amid the complex global and regional landscape, full of intertwined opportunities and challenges, economic diplomacy in 2024 was significantly enhanced, implemented systematically, decisively and effectively. It closely followed the spirit of Directive 15 by the Party Secretariat on economic diplomacy for national development by 2030 and Resolution 21 on the Government's Action Program, key guidance and directions. The economic diplomacy work has brought concrete, practical results that created breakthroughs and significantly contributed to the country's overall socio-economic development achievements.

Economic diplomacy has truly become a core component of 60 key diplomatic activities of top leaders in 2024, resulting in over 170 cooperation agreements, thereby promoting cooperation in trade, investment, tourism and labour collaboration with major markets and strategic investment partners, particularly in Northeast Asia, the U.S., and India.

New growth drivers were strongly promoted, such as signing nine Government-level cooperation documents with Republic of Korea on renewable energy, semiconductors and high-tech electronics. Similarly, partnerships focusing on innovation, green transformation and digital transformation were prioritized in future cooperation with the UAE and Qatar.

Notably, decisive, effective, and timely efforts were made to promote technology diplomacy with key partners and major technology corporations.

The highlight of the past year was our attraction of leading technology corporations to Vietnam, such as NVIDIA, Amkor, LG, Hyosung, Foxcom...

Efforts to diversify markets and partners were also aggressively pursued, yielding significant outcomes.

With underexplored markets like Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, we have promoted economic diplomacy with important partners such as Chile, Peru, Brazil, Dominica, Hungary, Romania, UAE, Qatar. New directions, such as developing the Halal industry, were promoted, highlighted by the successful hosting of the first National Halal Conference.

Economic Diplomacy: Positioning the Nation for Optimal Advantage!
Economic Diplomacy: Vietnam and UAE leaders witness the signing of the CEPA,Vietnam's first free trade agreement with a Middle Eastern country. (Photo: VGP)

Through the Prime Minister's visits to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in October 2024, relations were upgraded to Comprehensive Partnerships and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE was signed. This oucome ushered in a new phase of economic, trade, investment, scientific and technological cooperation with the UAE in particular and the broader Middle East region in general.

Economic diplomacy has actively promoted the implementation of outcomes from high-level visits, contributing effectively to the realization of strategic breakthroughs.

Strategic advisory and policy recommendations for socio-economic management have been strengthened. International cooperation on high-quality infrastructure development and strategic “hard” and “soft” infrastructure connectivity with neighboring countries has advanced. Recently, we actively promoted the construction of three railway lines connecting Vietnam and China and mobilized resources from donors to implement railway projects in Vietnam. High-quality human resource development partnerships were expanded, making it a key cooperation focus with international partners.

Another highlight was economic diplomacy's robust support for local governments and businesses in expanding international economic relations, focusing on serving citizens, localities, and enterprises.

Vietnamese diplomatic missions abroad carried out over 700 economic diplomacy activities promoting trade, investment and tourism; supporting over 400 local economic promotion activities at home and abroad, helping provinces and cities sign 130 agreements with international partners. Economic diplomacy is increasingly institutionalized, systematized and aligned with the collective efforts of the entire political system, with close coordination among ministries, localities and sectors.

Economic Diplomacy: Positioning the Nation for Optimal Advantage!
Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Minh Hang. (Photo: Tuan Anh)

The global situation in 2025 is expected to remain complex, with unpredictable developments. What are the key focuses for economic diplomacy in facing new challenges?

In 2025, the global landscape will remain complicated, with increasing trends of economic politicization, fragmentation and division. For Vietnam, 2025 holds pivotal significance as a "crucial" year in implementing the five-year socio-economic development plan for the 2021-2025 period and achieving the goals set by the 13th Party National Congress for this term, while laying the groundwork for the 14th Party National Congress. This sets the stage for Vietnam to transition into a new era of prosperity and strength.

In this spirit, Economic Diplomacy in 2025 will follow the Government’s principle: “Say it, do it; commit, deliver; act with tangible, measurable and clear outcomes”. The approach will focus on “clear objectives, clear responsibilities, clear tasks, clear timelines, clear accountability, clear outputs and clear results”.

The methodology will also continue to innovate, emphasizing acceleration, decisiveness and boldness to generate new efficiencies, breakthroughs and results, aligned with the Government’s 2025 operational theme of “Discipline, Responsibility, Proactiveness, Efficiency, Acceleration, Breakthrough”, focusing on the following five key priorities:

First, strengthen Economic Diplomacy in High-Level Foreign Affairs Activities in 2025 to maintain momentum and enhance relations with key and potential partners. Leverage multilateral forums hosted by Vietnam, such as the P4G Summit, ASEAN Future Forum, and UNCTAD Conference, to promote economic and trade cooperation with other countries.

Second, intensify efforts by developing specific plans and establishing mechanisms for dialogue with partners to accelerate the implementation of high-level agreements and commitments that have been reached.

In particular, advise and actively push for the resolution of bottlenecks and outstanding issues in cooperation with partners, such as resolving the yellow card IUU issue for Vietnam’s seafood, enhancing cooperation with China on border economic development, transportation connectivity and vigorously implementing the three railway lines connecting with China, etc.

Third, promote and create breakthroughs in economic-trade relations, investment and labour relations to effectively serve development goals. This includes intensifying efforts to access and explore new, high-potential markets that have not yet been tapped, such as the Halal market, Africa, South Asia, Latin America, etc, strengthening aviation sector to support trade and cargo transport and pursue Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with high-potential markets.

Forth, fostering New Growth Drivers: make technology diplomacy, semiconductor diplomacy and digital economy diplomacy central to ED efforts. Focus on researching and establishing frameworks for sectoral partnerships with partner countries in science and technology, semiconductors and AI. Maximize collaboration with tech giants like NVIDIA.

Economic Diplomacy: Positioning the Nation for Optimal Advantage!
Economic Diplomacy: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (second to right), Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chinh Dung (R) and President and CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang at the signing ceremony, in Hanoi, on December 5, 2024. (Photo: VGP)

Finally, in its role as a policy advisor, economic diplomacy will continue to focus on strategic advisory work and proposing policies to support the socio-economic management, closely following global and regional developments as well as the country's development needs—especially in untapped markets and the demands of foreign partners—to timely recommend appropriate policies. Strengthen research into new, breakthrough solutions to attract resources for development, particularly in green economy, digital economy, circular economy, technology transfer, innovation, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, climate change adaptation...

I am confident that with the collective effort, solidarity, and unity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, overseas diplomatic missions, ministries, departments, localities, associations and businesses, economic diplomacy will continue to be implemented vigorously, comprehensively and more creatively, achieving even greater breakthroughs and making substantial, effective contributions to socio-economic development. This will ensure the successful realization of the goals for the 2021-2025 period and lay a strong foundation for the country to enter a new era—an era of national growth and prosperity.

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