HCMC – At a reception to celebrate Bastille Day on July 14, the French national holiday, the Consul General of France in HCMC, Emmanuelle Pavillon-Grosser, said France is happy with its good ties with Vietnam.
According to Pavillon-Grosser, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Pham Minh Chinh, traveled to France in November 2021, illustrating the importance of the bilateral relations between France and Vietnam.
Among the countries awarding scholarships to Vietnamese students, France ranks third, she said.
According to her, the Covid pandemic highlighted the solidarity between the two countries, from the donation of face masks by Vietnam to France in 2020 to the 3.5 million vaccine doses donated by France via the Covax system to Vietnam in 2021.
Moreover, the reopening of Vietnam’s borders has allowed for trade in all areas between the two countries, and also for tourist mobility, she said.
Pavillon-Grosser also said EVFTA, the free trade agreement between the European Union and Vietnam, which took effect in August 2020, is already delivering results, despite the pandemic.
In fact, the trade agreement, effective from August 1, 2020, is the most ambitious one the EU has ever signed with a developing country. It will eventually eliminate almost all tariffs between the two sides.
For the EU, EVFTA represents an important step toward securing and strengthening its trade and investment partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
This is the second agreement signed with an ASEAN country after the EU-Singapore agreement came into force on November 21, 2019.
The Consul General of France in HCMC also recalled that France with 3.6 billion dollars invested in Vietnam ranks third among the European countries with investments in Vietnam, in addition to the investments made by the French already settled in Vietnam.
