BuenosAires(VNA) – Vietnam is one ofthe most important economics, trade and investment partner of Argentina, Vice President of Argentina Gabriela Michetti told Vietnam’sDeputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai at a meeting in Buenos Aires on October27.

Michetti, who is also President of theArgentine Senate, stressed that Argentinais keen on developing cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, andrecognised the remarkable progresses in bilateral relations in recentyears.

She proposed Vietnam create opportunities forbusinesses to cooperate in the fields of their strengths, includinggarment-textile, agriculture, culture, and people-to-people exchanges.

For his part, Deputy Minister Hai briefedthe outcomes of the mid-term session of the Vietnam-Argentina intergovernmentalcommittee, which took place in BuenosAires on October 25-26, and affirmed that thismechanism has helped promote bilateral cooperation not only in economics, tradeand investment but also in agriculture, science and technology.

He urged the two sides to strengthencoordination to increase bilateral trade to 3.5 billion USD in 2017 as well asspeed up the roadmap to open markets for farm produce in 2017-2018 which includes facilitating procedures for Vietnamese fruits such as lychees, dragonfruits, longans and mangoes and Argentine fruits such as oranges, blueberries,pears, apples and cherries.

The official also suggested increasingdelegation exchanges and hosting trade and investment promotion activities tohelp firms explore business environment in the respective countries.

Vietnam will serve as a gateway for Argentinato export goods to the Southeast Asian market while Argentinawill help Vietnampenetrate into the Latin American market, he affirmed.

He proposed Argentina - a founding memberof the South America’s Fractious Trade Bloc (Mercosur) accelerate thenegotiation process and signing of a preferential trade agreement between thisbloc and Vietnam.

Earlier on October 25-26, Deputy MinisterHai and Secretary for International Economic Relations of the Argentine ForeignMinistry Horacio Reyser co-chaired a meeting of the Vietnam-Argentinainter-governmental committee.

Reyser said Vietnam is not only apriority market in the strategy of diversifying and expanding exports ofArgentina but also one of the most important trade partners in Asia and thethird biggest importer of Argentina.

Hai  cited two-way tradesurpassed 3 billion USD in 2016, showing a year-on-year rise of 16.7 percent.In the first nine months of 2017, bilateral trade reached nearly 2.4billion USD, up 15 percent against the same period last year.

Vietnam mainly exported footwear, garment-textile, rubber, electronic spare parts, andplastic products while importing soybeans, soybean oil, maze, wheat,cattle-feed, and pharmaceutical products from the market.

The two sides pledged to speed up theexchanges of views on food security and animal and plant quarantine. Argentina wants to export cherries to Vietnam while Vietnam looks to ship lychees tothe South American country.

During his visit to Argentina, Deputy Minister Hai also had aworking session with Argentina’sDeputy Minister of Production Miguel Braun.-VNA