Mexico’s magazine Voces Del Periodista (Voice of Mexican journalists) has run a story spotlighting the traditional ties between Vietnam and Latin America in general and Brazil in particular, on the occasion of Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s official visit to Brazil from September 23-26.

The article, entitled “Vietnam opens its arms of friendship to Latin American countries”, highlighted the image of a Vietnamese nation with increasing integration in all fields with friends all over the world, becoming an important factor in the Indo-Pacific region.

Vietnam’s glorious history of national defence has inspired millions of peace-loving people around the world, it said, underlining that the country has risen from the ashes of war into a strong country playing a prominent role in the region and the world, it noted, adding that it has become the fourth largest economy in ASEAN and the 40th in the world, entering the global top 20 economies in terms of international trade scale in 2022.

Last year, US magazine US News & World Report listed Vietnam among the world’s top 30 powerful countries basing on five factors of leadership capacity, economic influence, political influence, strong international alliance and strong military, the article noted.

Regarding the Vietnam-Latin America relations, the article clarified that this is an extremely close and long-term relationship, while reviewing major milestones of the ties. It noted that so far, Vietnam has set up diplomatic relations with all 33 Latin American countries.

In terms of economic-trade partnership, the article said that two-way trade has increased strongly from 14.2 billion USD in 2018 to 23 billion USD in 2022.

In investment, Vietnam has invested in a number of important projects in the Latin American region with hundreds of millions of USD, including telecommunications projects by Viettel in Peru and Haiti, as well as those by Viglacera Corporation and Thai Binh company in Cuba. Meanwhile, investors from 21 Latin American countries are running 114 projects in Vietnam with a combined capital of about 671 million USD.

Vietnam and Latin American partners are effectively implementing trade agreements, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, and Peru are members, as well as the Vietnam-Chile FTA and Vietnam-Cuba FTA.

The article underlined that the Vietnamese PM’s visit to Brazil will open up new cooperation opportunities for the two countries in many fields, especially on the threshold of the 35th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations in 2024.

After elevating their ties to a comprehensive partnership in 2007, Vietnam and Brazil have enjoyed a deep and substantial partnership. The two sides have signed and implemented 16 cooperation agreements, protocols and deals in the fields of science-technology, maritime transport, civil aviation, agriculture, health care, trade, tourism, State and people-to-people diplomacy as well as locality-to-locality collaboration.

They have also maintained the Joint Committee mechanism between the two governments and political consultations between the two Foreign Ministries. Vietnam supported Brazil to run for a seat at the UN Security Council, while Brazil also assisted Vietnam to become a non-permanent member of the council in the 2020-2021 tenure.

At the same time, Brazil is one of the largest trade partner of Vietnam in Latin America, while Vietnam is the biggest trade partner of Brazil in Southeast Asia and the fifth in Asia.

According to Voces Del Periodista, there is plenty of room for Vietnam and Brazil to promote their trade relations as their structure of goods is complementary to each other, especially in the context of Vietnam and other members of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) are conducting research on the possibility of negotiating a MERCOSUR - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

VNA