Vietnam Cooperation Index: Efficiently Orienting Integration Strategy

Based on updated statistics, Vietnam Cooperation Index is the first material to focus on quantitative analysis and assessment on multiple cooperation areas, including trade, investment, education, tourism and aid between Vietnam and dialogue partners such as ASEAN, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, and the European Commission (EU) during the 1995-2009 period.

 

Mr Le Danh Vinh, Standing Vice Minister of Industry and Trade, said: “In the context when international economic integration received more attention from different angles, particularly when international and regional economy encounters complicated developments, the more in-depth and comprehensive the impact assessment of cooperation activities during the previous period is, the more favourable policy planning in the following period will be.”

 

The Vietnam Cooperation Index will provide a database and analyze, compare and evaluate impacts of international economic integration on the cooperation between Vietnam and the above countries, provide useful information that evaluates Vietnam’s integration results from when it began international economic integration to now, thereby helping efficiently and actively orient the future integration strategy.   

Mr Allaster Cox, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, said the Vietnam Cooperation Index is a vivid demonstration of the significant assistance provided by the Australian Government, within this framework of the project “Capacity building on Management and Coordination of International Economic Integration” under the B-WTO Technical Assistance program.

 

The Vietnam Cooperation Index with 9 partners (ASEAN, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, the EU) lies above that of the rest of the world for most of the period. In 2009, the crisis hit cooperation index of the rest of the world harder than that of the 9 partners: 50 percent vs. 3.6 percent. The cooperation index between Vietnam and these 9 partners increased by 5.6 times, while the rest of the world only increased by 3.5 times during the study period.

 

At the end of the study period, the US index ranked first; followed by Japan, Korea, China, New Zealand, ASEAN, Australia, Canada and EU. The economic crisis affected trade, investment and tourism, but did not affect education and aid, it also did not affect investment cooperation between Vietnam and the US, New Zealand and Australia. Before 2009, ASEAN investment in Vietnam always ranked first, but after this time, investment from the US increased sharply.

 

Trade volume with the 9 partners grows almost 5 times faster than with the rest of the world, the key partners account for 80 percent of total trade volume between Vietnam and other countries. In 1995-2009, Vietnam joined many organizations such as ASEAN, APEC, ASEM and WTO. At present, Vietnam is joining in negotiations on several other FTAs, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the ASEAN-EU Free Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan, the Vietnam-Chile Bilateral FTA and the Vietnam-EU Bilateral FTA. Vietnam has joined with ASEAN to sign and implement a series of FTAs with six partners in East Asia, including the ASEAN-China FTA (ACFTA), the ASEAN-Korea FTA (AKFTA), the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (AJCEP), the ASEAN-India FTA (AIFTA), and the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (AANZFTA).

 

Vietnam Cooperation Index showed that in 1996-2006, the majority of ODA came from major bilateral partners, but since 2007, ODA from international organizations has been surpassing that of the major bilateral partners.

 

In the education sector, the number of Vietnamese students has been increasing steadily. Australia is the most favoured destination for Vietnamese students. Education ties within these 9 economies are much larger than with other countries.

 

However, the Vietnam Cooperation Index has no statistic available on art and culture influences or people to people interactions. Data also could not be fully recorded regarding the India market, R&D and immigration.