Warm welcome: Chinh (left) and Lee inspecting the guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi. — AFP
Singapore and Vietnam have expanded their scope of bilateral economic cooperation and signed new deals on sustainable infrastructure, skills development and the exchange of innovation talent.
Energy connectivity, sustainability, and digital solutions and innovation are new and emerging areas in which both countries want to improve cooperation under the Singapore-Vietnam Connectivity Framework Agreement.
Yesterday, they exchanged side letters to mark the expansion of the agreement – the first upgrade since it was signed in 2005 – and also inked three new memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in the areas of green economy, innovation and skills development.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is on a three-day official visit to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, witnessed these events with his counterpart Pham Minh Chinh.
PM Lee had earlier in the day laid a wreath at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, before attending a welcome ceremony at the Presidential Palace. He then met Chinh at the Office of Government Building.
Singapore was Vietnam’s second-largest foreign investor as at last December, with a cumulative investment of US$70.8bil.
Vietnam was Singapore’s 11th-largest trading partner, with bilateral goods trade growing 16.4% year on year to S$31.3bil 2022.
The letters on the Connectivity Framework Agreement were exchanged between Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng and Vietnam’s Planning and Investment Minister Nguyen Chi Dzung.
A day earlier, the two ministers co-chaired the annual Singapore-Vietnam Connectivity Ministerial Meeting, where they discussed collaborations in new and emerging areas. They also noted progress made in sectors such as education, finance, and information technology and telecommunications.
Tan said Singapore can partner Vietnam in its next phase of growth as it transitions to the green and digital economy.
“Singapore companies can build on the strong foundation and partnerships with Vietnam to capture opportunities in these new areas,” he said.
On the sidelines of Sunday’s meeting, an MOU on innovation cooperation was signed between Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research and Vietnam’s National Innovation Centre.
Among other things, it promotes collaboration in advanced manufacturing involving both countries’ small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups.
Meanwhile, professionals from Singapore and Vietnam might soon find it easier to secure stints in certain innovation-related areas of work in each other’s countries, under one of the three new MOUs signed yesterday.
The deal establishes an innovation talent exchange programme between both countries. A joint task force will be set up to support the implementation of the MOU, which was signed by Tan, Dzung and Vietnam’s Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung.
The third MOU advances collaboration between Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City in sustainable urban development and infrastructure, and aims to improve the bankability of such projects.
It was signed between Infrastructure Asia – which is jointly set up by Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore – and the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee.
There was also progress made in climate action. Following an MOU inked last October, Singapore and Vietnam exchanged a letter of intent after substantively concluding negotiations of a legally binding implementation agreement, on the trading of carbon credits compliant with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. — The Straits Times/ANN
