(VOVworld) - Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and Australian Minister for Trade and Competitiveness Craig Emerson discussed ways to boost bilateral cooperation during Hoang’s visit to Australia from April 22-28. Both sides have concurred to encourage their trade promotion agencies to boost effective and sustainable cooperation. They discussed ways to increase the capability of utilizing preferences from the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. Vietnam suggested Australia support the Seafood Import Association’s proposal to open quality control office in Vietnam to facilitate the country’s exports to Australia. Regarding multilateral cooperation, the two sides pledged all-out efforts to boost closer cooperation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations between ASEAN member countries and their partners.

Minister Hoang worked with some Australian ministries on cooperation in oil and gas exploration and exploitation, coal export-import and energy saving and witnessed the signing of several memoranda of understanding and long-term supply contracts of coal, energy, oil and gas between Vietnamese and Australian groups.