Polish President’s Vietnam visit hoped to forge multi-faceted cooperation

The Vietnam-Poland relationship has made progresses in recent years, as reflected through regular exchanges of delegations. 

Poland has placed importance on Vietnam’s role and position in its foreign policy towards Asia, considering Vietnam a leading partner in Southeast Asia. 

Poland is Vietnam’s top trade partner in Central Eastern Europe, while Vietnam is Poland’s seventh largest trade partner outside the EU. 

Vietnam mainly exports garments-textiles, seafood, rice, coffee, pepper, confectionary, farm produce, phones and electronic products to Poland, while importing powdered milk, medicine, fruit and equipment for the coal and shipbuilding sectors from the country. 

Two-way trade hit US$790 million in 2016, of which Vietnam’s export revenue to Poland was US$598 million. In the first nine months of this year, bilateral trade value reached US$730 million. 

As of October 2017, Poland had 14 investment projects in Vietnam, with total capital of US$182.88 million. Between 2014-2017, Poland’s investment in Vietnam doubled, mainly in real estate, processing and services. 

Vietnam has invested in four projects in Poland worth about US$5.1 million, specialising in services and food industry. 

Poland has committed to supplying a preferential credit package worth 250 million EUR (US$296.3 million) to Vietnam, as part of a financial cooperation framework agreement between the two countries. 

Bilateral partnerships in national defence, education-training and culture-tourism have also been maintained. 

Between 1960 and 1990, Poland trained more than 4,000 Vietnamese students and scientists, and over 3,500 labourers, mostly in the coal and shipbuilding sectors. Nowadays, the number of Vietnamese students in Poland is increasing. 

Hanoi-based Vietnam-Poland High School, which was built in 2008 with 150,000 EUR in official development assistance provided by Poland, is the result of the friendship between the two countries. 

Poland also helped Vietnam restore relic sites in the ancient imperial capital of Hue, central Thua Thien-Hue province, Cham towers in central Quang Nam province and Cu Chi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Many frameworks agreement between Vietnam and Poland have been signed, focusing on cooperation in culture-science, trade protection facilitation, double taxation avoidance, citizen transfer and agricultural collaboration. 

Currently, about 40,000 Vietnamese are living in Poland, contributing to ties between the two countries.