According to the announcement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, at the invitation of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chinese Premier Li Qiang paid an official visit to Vietnam from October 12 to 14.
This official visit to Vietnam by Chinese Premier Li Qiang takes place in the context of the overall bilateral relationship maintaining a good development momentum and achieving many important and historic results.
Following the very successful official visit to China by the late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (October 2022) and the state visit to Vietnam by General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping and his wife (December 2023), the two sides issued a "Joint Statement on continuing to deepen and elevate the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and building a Vietnam-China Community of Shared Future of strategic significance", signing 36 cooperation documents in many fields.
General Secretary and President To Lam and his wife paid a state visit to China from August 18-20, 2024. The two sides issued a "Joint Statement on continuing to deepen and elevate the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and building a Vietnam-China Community of Shared Future", and signed a number of cooperation documents in various fields.
Since the beginning of 2024, high-level and all-level exchanges and contacts have continued to take place actively and in flexible forms.
In terms of substantive cooperation, Vietnam maintains its position as the largest trading partner in ASEAN and China's fifth largest trading partner by national criteria (after the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia). Two-way trade turnover in 2023 will reach 171.9 billion USD (down 2.6%), of which Vietnam's exports will reach 61.2 billion USD (up 5.6%), imports from China will reach 110.6 billion USD (down 6.6%), and Vietnam will have a trade deficit of 49.4 billion USD (down 18.4%). In the first 8 months of 2024, bilateral import-export turnover will reach 130.78 billion USD (up 25%); of which Vietnam's exports will reach 38.28 billion USD (up 3.9%); Imports were 92.5 billion USD (up 34.25%), trade deficit was 54.2 billion USD, exceeding nearly 5 billion USD compared to the trade deficit with China in the whole year of 2023.
In terms of investment, in 2023, China's investment in Vietnam reached 4.47 billion USD with 707 projects, making it the 4th largest investor in Vietnam in terms of registered capital and the largest in terms of number of projects. In the first 8 months of 2024, China ranked 3rd with registered capital reaching nearly 1.7 billion USD (after Singapore, Hong Kong (China), Japan), but ranked first in the number of newly licensed projects with 662 projects. By the end of August 2024, China had invested 29 billion USD in Vietnam, ranking 6th out of 148 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with 4,865 projects. Chinese investors have invested in 19/21 economic sectors with FDI investment and in 55/63 provinces and cities of Vietnam.
Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang was born in July 1959 in Rui'an, Zhejiang, China. He is of Han ethnicity. He joined the Communist Party of China in April 1983 and holds a Master's degree in Business Administration.
During his political career, Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang has held many positions in provinces and cities such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai... He was a member of the Party Central Committee of the 18th, 19th and 20th terms; a member of the Politburo of the 19th term, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the 20th term.
Mr. Li Qiang is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Premier of the State Council of China from March 2023 to present.
