Vietnam, Tunisia promote trade, mutual cooperation

A delegation from the Vietnamese Trade Office in Algeria and Tunisia is making a working trip to Tunis from October 31 to November 5 to discuss the current state of trade cooperation between Vietnam and Tunisia and measures to promote bilateral relations.

Trade Counselor Hoang Duc Nhuan joined working sessions with officials of the Tunisian Ministry of Trade and Export Development and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Overseas Tunisians. He also met with President of the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA) Samir Majoul.

On November 2, the delegation and UTICA jointly held a webinar for trade networking, with the participation of representatives from several Tunisian ministries and industries as well as 60 companies from both countries.

Addressing the event, UTICA Vice President Slim Ghorbel called on Vietnamese businesses to invest, collaborate, and partner with Tunisian peers in such fields as processing industries, new technologies, and marine fish farming. These would enable the sides to leverage Tunisia's strategic location, abundant resources, modern infrastructure, and highly skilled labour for exports to other countries in the region.

He also suggested Vietnam should consider importing Tunisia's strong products like dates, olive oil, and phosphates. UTICA plans to send a trade promotion delegation to Vietnam in the first half of 2024 to organise a business forum between the two countries and showcase Tunisia's strong products.

Commercial collaboration remains modest and has fallen short of its potential, so the Vietnamese diplomat attributed this to inadequate interest of business communities in each other's markets.

Tunisia's trade mainly focuses on the EU and Africa due to geographical proximity and existing free trade agreements. To promote bilateral economic relations and trade, Vietnam and Tunisia need to actively run promotional activities and raise awareness on potentials and strengths, Nhuan recommended.

Trade between the two reached approximately 66 million USD last year and close to 70 million USD in the first nine months of 2023. Vietnam exported raw coffee, pepper, cashews, fishery products, and machinery to Tunisia, while importing seafood, dates, chemicals, plastics, clothing, and animal feed ingredients from the market.

The countries signed a trade agreement in 1994, in which they committed to granting each other most favoured nation status, an economic, cultural, scientific and technical cooperation agreement in 1999, and a framework agreement on agricultural cooperation in 2002./.