Vietnam for more border trade with China

HANOI, Nov 19 (Xinhua): Vietnam's vice minister Friday called for further promotion of border trade with China as the border area is considered as a gate of the country's northern key economic zone. Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade (MIT) Nguyen Cam Tu told a conference on border trade that the trading activities in the border areas with China have not been promoted in recent years. According to a report by head of MIT's mountainous trade department, Tran Bao Giam, the land borderline with China runs through seven Vietnamese provinces and two Chinese provinces. During the period from 2006 to 2011, the Vietnamese government and relevant agencies have issued appropriate policies and regulations in accordance with the border trade development, including providing favourable conditions for goods exports that contributed to promoting economic development in both countries, Giam said in the report. With the ASEAN-China free trade area, the project "two corridors, one economic belt," and the expansion of the "cooperation in the sub-Mekong region," the Vietnam-China border gates help boost trade exchange not only between the two countries, but also between Vietnam and other countries, said an MIT report. According to MIT, trade turnover during 2006-2010 in Vietnam's seven northern border provinces with China annually increased 16.6 per cent, with a total value of more than 23.85 billion US dollars. Trade activities in the northern border areas should be further promoted and put under mid- and long-term strategies, with close control over programs to develop border trade with China, particularly expansion of the exports, said the deputy minister.