At the meeting (Photo: hcmcpv.org.vn)
At the receiving ceremony, the Chairman of the HCMC People's Council sincerely thanked the Government and people of Argentina for donating 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Vietnam. This is a very meaningful gift, showing the importance of the Comprehensive Partnership and the traditional friendship and solidarity between the two countries, contributing to help the city prevent and control the pandemic and return to the new normal situation.
He affirmed that HCMC attaches great importance to the diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Argentina, as well as between Ho Chi Minh City and Argentina. Despite the complicated developments of the pandemic, in 2021, two-way import and export between HCMC and Argentina reached 147.6 million USD, an increase of about 5% compared to 2020. Especially, in the first 2 months of 2022, imports from Argentina to HCMC increased by approximately 93% over the same period (reaching nearly 10 million USD). Currently, there are four investment projects of Argentina in HCMC, with a total investment capital of 37,820 USD, ranking 97th out of 110 countries and territories investing in the city.
However, Mr. Nguyen Van Dung realized that there is still a lot of room to promote economic, trade and investment cooperation between HCMC and Argentina.
HCMC welcomes the Embassy to organize exchange activities and introduce Argentine culture to the people in the city, such as movie screenings or enjoying Argentine cuisine, the Deputy Chairman said, and he expressed his hope that the Ambassador and the Embassy will coordinate with the city to propose bilateral cooperation activities in the near future, especially on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam – Argentina diplomatic relations in 2023.
Argentine Ambassador Luis Pablo María Beltramino highly appreciated the role of HCMC and said that many Argentine businesses are interested in and implementing business projects in the city. Argentina appreciates cooperation with Vietnam. Vietnam is now Argentina's fifth largest trade partner. In the Asian bloc, Vietnam is the country that Argentina pays the most attention to and cooperates with in the technical field. Many trade representatives of Argentina are present in HCMC.
The Ambassador said that he committed to further deepen relations between the two countries and to mark the 50th anniversary of Vietnam – Argentina diplomatic relations in 2023. The Ambassador also hoped that there would be many delegations from Vietnam to Argentina and vice versa to exchange and boost economic development cooperation between the two countries, as well as exchange and develop in the fields of culture and sports.
According to the Ambassador, Argentina is preparing many activities to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2023. He expressed his hope that in the coming time, the two sides will have a working session to make an action plan./.