Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, Bui Thanh Son, had a bilateral meeting with Ambassador of Sri Lanka in Ha Noi, Prof. A. Saj U. Mendis to explore possibilities and avenues to enhance economic, commercial, investment, touristic and trade dimension and particularly, in the context of multilateral and entry into the largest trading bloc, known as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Ambassador Mendis also enunciated the interest of Sri Lanka to have an FTA with Vietnam as both countries could benefit with regard to bilateral trade.
Minister Thanh Son said bilateral relations in the context of political relations have reached basically the maximal plateau between the two countries and it is of the intrinsic interest of both countries to translate and transform the political utility to economic utility.
The Foreign Minister said that Vietnam had to overcome three issues to advance its current status; firstly, infrastructure, secondly, developing soft infrastructure such as human capital and digital transformation and thirdly, formulation of foreign policy with reforms inside the country that support integration with other countries.
Vietnam wishes to exploit and leverage the potential of Sri Lanka on a myriad of sectors and realms. Since the trade between the two countries are at a modest level of around USD 350 million, both the countries should have a lucid and focused objective to advance it to USD 500 million within the next year, and then to reach USD one billion, in the foreseeable future, Minister added.
The Minister emphasised the vitality of tourism since Vietnam is highly focused and is one of the most sought-after touristic destinations in the world attracting over 10 million tourists on a given year.
In this scenario, the Minister suggested that Sri Lanka and Vietnam could have bilateral tourism since very few Vietnamese travel to Sri Lanka despite the amazing and “riveting” natural beauty and fauna and flora, amongst others.
The Minister stated that direct flights may be difficult to operate but could operate charter flights since both the countries have a large Buddhist population.
He said that in 2022, approximately 10 million Vietnamese have traveled out of the country, mostly to ASEAN, China, Japan and Europe and very few have traveled to Sri Lanka. The Ambassador added that if Sri Lanka could capture 0.2%, it would translate to 20,000, which the Minister too agreed of the increasing potential.
Ambassador discussion of the augmentation of Vietnam within a space of two decades was primarily due to its 17 FTAs and Comprehensive/Strategic Partnership Agreements.
In this context, Ambassador Mendis too echoed and resonated the sentiments expressed by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister in Jakarta of the deep interest that Sri Lanka has in joining the 15-member RCEP.
Mendis did underscore that Sri Lanka and Vietnam had exports amounting to around USD 750 million in early 1980s, whereas, today the exports of Vietnam are in the vicinity of USD 370 billion and Sri Lanka is still hovering around USD 12-13 billion.
The Minister was visibly and discernibly keen in enhancing and augmenting the bilateral trade as well as bilateral investments between the two countries.