Petroleum, a strategic priority area

During a recent meeting between Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu and Azerbaijan Ambassador to Vietnam Anar Imanov considered cooperation in petroleum as a long-term strategic priority and underlined the need to boost bilateral projects. He reaffirmed his commitment to creating favorable conditions including the legal basis for Vietnamese businesses to invest in Azerbaijan and asked Vietnam to consider the possibility to import oil from Azerbaijan.

In recent years, the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PVN) has actively sought opportunities to enhance cooperation with Azerbaijan partners in petroleum. Specifically, PVN opened its representative office in Azerbaijan in 2011 and currently has ties with the Azerbaijan National Oil and Gas Company (Socar) via projects to explore, extract, transport and produce oil and gas products in Azerbaijan, Vietnam and third countries. In addition, Azerbaijan has helped train a large number of Vietnamese officials, particularly in petroleum, following the agreement on science and training cooperation between PVN and the Azerbaijan National Oil Academy.

Anar Imanov said that to make the most of potential and meet the needs in each country, Azerbaijan will focus on boosting oil exports to Vietnam in the short run. He also said that the rapid and impressively growing economy and political stability in Vietnam had attracted Azerbaijan businesses.

In his part, Nguyen Cam Tu said that to deepen economic ties and make them more practical, the two countries needed to make the most of their potential and advantages and consider petroleum as a long-term strategic cooperation priority.

Towards US$1 billion in trade

Apart from petroleum, Vietnam-Azerbaijan trade has achieved great progress. Specifically, bilateral trade reached US$381.3 million in 2013, a 13-fold increase from 2012. Of this, Vietnam sold US$56.9 million worth of goods to Azerbaijan, a more than 2.3-fold increase, and imported US$324.5 million worth of goods from this country, a sharp increase from US$5.01 million in 2012. The figures are expected to increase since leaders of the two countries agreed to increase bilateral trade to US$1 billion in the years to come.

Regarding bilateral economic and trade relations, Nguyen Cam Tu said that despite the recent good growth and great potential for both countries to promote cooperation in many areas, bilateral trade revenue remained very modest. Vietnam can provide agricultural products, seafood, handicrafts and computers for Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan can cooperate with Vietnam in areas it has advantages such as petroleum, education and training, and leather.

In terms of agriculture, Vietnam leads the world in exporting several agricultural products such as rice, coffee, pepper and rubber. Azerbaijan is also a large provider of agricultural products for the region and the world. For this reason, the two countries should share their experience and seek goods exchange channels.

However, both Anar Imanov and Nguyen Cam Tu said that the two countries need to tighten cooperation in sharing information to seek cooperative directions. Specifically, it is necessary to establish a Vietnam-Azerbaijan Joint-governmental Committee for Economic Cooperation to help resolve problems for businesses of the two countries during the process of cooperation and to deepen discussion on bilateral economic cooperation.

Prior to that, during his recent visit to Vietnam by Azerbaijan President this May, the two countries concluded a joint-governmental agreement on economic, trade, science and technology cooperation. The agreement will provide a basis for great opportunities for cooperation between the two countries in the near future./.

An Azerbaijan petroleum business delegation scheduled to visit Vietnam this coming November to seek partners. On the occasion, the Azerbaijan Embassy in Vietnam will get together with Vietnamese agencies to organize a business forum which is a chance for the two parties to share business opportunities.