HANOI: Vietnam has urged Malaysia to intensify trade and investment ties between the two countries, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
She said Vietnam was targeting total trade between Vietnam and Malaysia to increase to USD20 billion based on the potentials of investment available between the two countries.
“Vietnam is opening opportunities and is prepared to accept Malaysian companies to invest in Vietnam particularly in the infrastructure, smart city and manufacturing sectors,”she told reporters after making a courtesy call on Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the Government Building, here today.
Dr Wan Azizah is on a three-day official visit to Vietnam beginning yesterday.
Vietnam is among Malaysia’s important trading partners with total trade in 2017 amounting to US11.7 billion, an increase of 13.9 per cent from 2016.
It makes Malaysia as Vietnam’s 13th largest trading partner in the world and the fourth in ASEAN after Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.
Dr Wan Azizah said in the approximately one hour meeting, the Vietnamese prime minister congratulated the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government which had won the 14th General Election in May.
She said Xuan Phuc had also invited Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to Vietnam to intensify bilateral relations between the two countries which had been established for the past 45 years.
She said the Vietnamese leader also congratulated PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who had won the by-election for the Port Dickson Parliamentary constituency on Oct 13.