Ambassador Pham Hai speaking at the workshop (Photo: baoquocte.vn)
Speaking at the workshop, Vietnamese Ambassador to Belarus Pham Hai emphasized the positive results in tourism - investment cooperation between Vietnam and Belarus in 2019, such as the opening of an automobile assembly joint venture "MAZ Asia”, implementing a cooperation project to produce dairy products in Vietnam.
In terms of tourism, the number of Belarusian tourists coming to Vietnam has increased sharply since Vietnam unilaterally exempted Belarus citizens from the visa requirement. From 2016 to 2018, an average of over 10,000 Belarusians visited Vietnam every year. However, in the first six month of 2019, the figure reached 4,000 arrivals.
At the workshop, the ambassador informed that the Government of Vietnam has decided to extend the visa exemption for Belarusian citizens until December 31st, 2022.
The delegates at the workshop agreed with the assessment of Ambassador Pham Hai that the two countries have great potential for tourism and investment cooperation development.
Representatives of Belarus’ travel companies said that currently Vietnam is the second most attractive destination in Southeast Asia for Belarusian tourists, only after Thailand, and positively evaluated extension of visa exemption for Belarusian citizens of the Government of Vietnam.
A representative from the "Top tour", a large tourism company organizing a variety of tours to Vietnam, said that the only limitation of Vietnam is distance, but impressions and emotions that tours to Vietnam bring are "enough" to make up for that.
The delegates discussed a number of solutions relating to promoting communications to increase the number of tourists between the two countries, as well as exchanged ideas about prospects of bilateral cooperation in the field of investment. The delegates also expressed their desire that in the coming time, Vietnamese enterprises will invest in a joint venture processing Vietnamese tea and coffee in Belarus./.