Peru hails cooperation prospects with Việt Nam, ASEAN

Việt Nam’s hosting of the APEC Year 2017, right after Peru, allows the close coordination between the two governments and promotion of the approach and determination of shared concerns in fishery and the fight against drug crimes, Popolizio said.

He recalled the talks in Lima in November 2016 between Peruvian President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, and his Vietnamese counterpart, Trần Đại Quang, during which numerous cooperation agreements were signed.

Based on those commitments, the first meeting of the Việt Nam-Peru Inter-Governmental Committee for Economic and Technological Cooperation was held on October 23, 2017, thus helping boost bilateral collaboration in trade, investment and tourism, the Deputy Minister noted.

The two sides have decided to increase the presence of Peru’s foreign affairs delegates in Hà Nội. Peru will appoint an ambassador in Việt Nam in early 2018. 

Regarding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the diplomat affirmed that since its foundation, APEC has become a platform to foster economic growth in the region, with intra-regional trade up seven-fold. Strengthening trade and investment liberalisation have contributed to improving the socio-economic indexes of the APEC economies.

In the context of increasing protectionism and emerging global challenges, Peru proposed that APEC must disseminate information about the benefits of trade liberalisation for development goals, link its trade-related agenda to its macro-economic agenda, pay more attention to adjustment costs, which are becoming exhausted due to free trade agreements, and at the same time intensify economic and technological cooperation, particularly in increasing the quality of human resources.

Concerning the expansion of cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the future, Popolizio stressed that Peru is a member of the Pacific Alliance (AP), which has set a goal of becoming the foundation for political integration and economic and trade integration in the world. 

Therefore, AP in general and Peru in particular are strengthening cooperation with ASEAN, on the basis of the framework agreement passed on September 22 in New York City, as well as the work plan for 2017-2018. The cooperation would focus on four areas: economy, education, science-technology- innovation and sustainable development.

In that spirit, in January this year, Peru organised a workshop to share experiences on the global value chain. In addition, the Lima administration is also preparing to host a seminar related to small and medium enterprises early next year.

Popolizio believes that the values ​​shared by AP and ASEAN will allow the two blocs to continue to design activities for common benefit, contributing to the consolidation and improvement of the role of AP.

He believes in the potential for AP-ASEAN relationship development, which will allow the two sides to continue pushing forward economic growth as well as the competitiveness of member economies.