Ambassador of Vietnam to Pakistan Nguyen Tien Phong on Thursday expressed the hope that the annual trade volume between Pakistan and Vietnam will likely reach $1 billion by the end of 2023.
He said that the current annual trade volume between Pakistan and Vietnam is $800 million, which can be easily increased to $1 billion by the end of next year.
The envoy said this while addressing the roundtable on “Vietnam-Pakistan economic and trade ties to realize future prospects” hosted by the Center of Pakistan and International Relations (COPAIR). The ambassador said that the two countries have extensive economic and commercial cooperation in the textile, leather, surgical, fabric, and tourism sectors.
He said that Vietnam imports fabrics worth billions of dollars, while Pakistan’s exports to Vietnam in this sector are very less.
Similarly, Vietnam’s surgical equipment imports are $479 million, whereas Pakistan’s presence is negligible. Phong said that there are also vast opportunities for trade cooperation between Vietnam and Pakistan in tourism.
He said that Vietnam was importing many products including cotton yarn, medicines, surgical instruments, leather products, fabrics, chemicals, meat and mutton products, pet food, and fertilizers and Pakistan should enhance exports of these products to Vietnam to take the bilateral trade to over $1 billion.
He added that Pakistan has a talented workforce in the IT and software field and Vietnam has good demand for these professionals, and Pakistan can increase the export of its IT manpower to Vietnam.
