New trade corridor: Nguyen Vinh Quang says Vietnam-Yunnan cooperation lies in complementarity

Nguyen Vinh Quang is at an exclusive interview with Yunnan International Communication Center for South and Southeast Asia.

"Vietnam attaches great importance to cooperation with Yunnan, and the solution for bilateral cooperation lies in the complementary differences. For instance, the two sides are working hard to build up a sustainable and stable supply chain for bilateral trading of agricultural products and seafoods," said Nguyen Vinh Quang, vice chairman of the Vietnam-China Friendship Association in Hanoi.

Nguyen Vinh Quang said this at a recent interview with reporters at Yunnan International Communication Center for South and Southeast Asia, who are having media tours to Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and other countries. Yunnan is the Chinese gateway to South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region.

Since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed ten years ago, China and Vietnam have upheld the principles of "long-term stability, future orientation, good-neighborly friendship and all-round cooperation," seeing each other as a "good neighbor, good friend, good comrade and good partner," Nguyen Vinh Quang noted.

As a senior expert and translator on China-related issues, Nguyen Vinh Quang once served as director of the Northeast Asia Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese envoy to China. He has visited 27 provinces and municipalities in China, and has been paying attention to and studying the development model of China for 45 years.

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi is built up by a China railway company.

Quang believed that China's reform and opening up is a remarkable achievement and the only way for Chinese progress. Linked by mountains and rivers, Vietnam and China are similar in culture and ideology, embracing a shared future. Since its economic reform in 1986, Vietnam has actively learned from China and developed an export-oriented economy that is pragmatic, efficient and well-integrated into the international community.

China is Vietnam's largest trading partner, the largest import source and the second largest export destination, and Vietnam is China's largest trading partner in ASEAN. In 2022, bilateral trade reached US$ 234.92 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%. Also, the two sides issued a China-Vietnam joint statement on further strengthening and deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership and a joint press communiqué between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Nguyen Vinh Quang said the common goals set by the top national leaders are encouraging, for quite a few cooperative areas of the Vietnam-China concerns are reiterated in these documents, such as capacity cooperation, infrastructure construction, connectivity cooperation, and completing the planning review of the Laocai-Hanoi-Haiphong standard-gauge railway as soon as possible. These are the intersection points of mutual benefit and win-win result.

A joint interview by international communicators from Yunnan, Chongqing and Hong Kong takes place in the Vietnam-China Friendship Palace.

From March 27 to April 3 this year, Wang Ning, secretary of the CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee, led a Yunnan friendly delegation to Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. During the visit to Vietnam, the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in local inter-party exchanges, personnel training, agriculture, economy, tourism, transportation and others.

Quang hoped that the further opening of the Vietnam and Yunnan railways, highways and cold-chain links could enable the fresh Haiphong seafood in the morning to grace the dinner table of Yunnan people in the evening. Through Yunnan, Vietnamese goods will have access to other Chinese provinces and beyond.

Recently, it has been trendy for Vietnamese youth to learn Chinese, listen to Chinese pop music and watch Chinese TV dramas. "Only by learning Chinese well, can you do business well!" Whenever Vietnamese youngsters asked Nguyen Vinh Quang if it is necessary to study in China or learn Chinese, Quang would always reply like this.

A view of urban Hanoi

Reporting by Wang Huan, Chen Chen, Liu Ziyu and Li Wenjun (Yunnan Daily); Trans-editing by Wang Shixue