Finnish trade delegation visits Vietnam

On 6–11 March 2016 Finland’s Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lenita Toivakka lead a Team Finland business delegation to Vietnam. Visiting both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the companies in the delegation represented education, cleantech and ICT.

Finland is known to be a dynamic society with particular expertise in technology and innovations. The country´s Cleantech and ICT solutions are global top-notch programmes.

Finland is also recognised as being one of the countries investing most heavily in research, development, innovation and education, an investment the country takes pride in and that has brought tangible results.

“Both Finland and Vietnam aim at developing their commercial and economic relations. The visit offered an excellent opportunity for us to showcase leading-edge Finnish expertise in several sectors on the rapidly developing Vietnamese market of over 94 million consumers,” Minister Toivakka said.

High-level meetings took place and networking events were arranged, in which Finnish companies could promote their business contacts and projects in Vietnam. The Minister and her delegation members met both Vietnamese ministers and representatives of other state institutions and the city management of Ho Chi Minh.

Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade of Việt Nam Vũ Huy Hoàng hosted the Finnish delegation.

In Ho Chi Minh, Minister Toivakka held a speech on education and innovation at the University of Ton Duc Thang. She also visited a waste treatment complex in the Binh Duong province, that has been built using Finnish development cooperation funds.

Vietnam has developed fast and is now a lower middle income country. Its economic growth is stable, and last year its GDP accelerated to 6.7 per cent. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations were completed in December. There is much untapped potential in the trade between Finland and Vietnam, and the new FTA supports the growth of our trade.

Thanks to the decades of development cooperation, the Vietnamese consider Finland a reliable partner, and Finnish expertise has a particularly good name in the country. The Team Finland delegation helped Finnish companies boosting their trade with Vietnam.

Bilateral trade has been growing steadily during the last few years, expanding by more than 30 per cent in 2015 compared to the previous year.

Finland wants to expand and deepen the cooperation with Vietnam also in the coming years, after the bilateral development cooperation has gradually been phased down.

The following companies were represented in the Minister’s Team Finland delegation: Aalto University Aalto EE, Cimson Oy/NEBA, Claned Group Oy, Comptel Corporation, EduCluster Finland Oy, Eltel Networks Oy, FCG Finnish Consulting Group Oy, Finland University Oy, Finnish Water Forum, Finnvera, Häme University of Applied Sciences, KaukoInternational Oy, Niras Finland Oy, Nokia Corporation, Nordautomation Oy, Outotec, Tekes, Vaisala Oyj, Vicus Capital Advisors Oy, Watrec Oy.