Vietnam-Washington State Trade and Investment Summit hosted in Renton
Our state economy is deeply engaged in trade in Asia – Pacific Rim markets. Vietnam ranked 10th for imports to Washington, led by apparel and footwear, while it is just 32nd as an export market for Washington goods such as aircraft and agricultural commodities. Commerce was pleased to join the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Seattle Chamber, Hanoi Promotion Agency and Vietnam Software and IT Service Association in co-organizing an investment summit for more than 100 business leaders and officials from Vietnam and the U.S. Hoang Quoc Vuong, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, chaired the event, representing the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the United States of America.
Featured speakers included Phu Ba Phu, director general of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency; Tom Sullivan, International Public Policy manager at Amazon; Kurt Beckett, deputy CEO of the Northwest Seaport Alliance; Rianne Perry, WSDA International Marketing Manager; and Tran Huang Tuu, vice chairman of the People’s Committee of Vinh Long Province. Represented sectors included food processing, IT, manufacturing, textiles, furniture and others.
Focus for the summit was promoting bilateral trade and investment to grow and strengthen our business relationships. Among the topics discussed were measures needed to address a slowing pace of export growth between the U.S. and Vietnam, opportunities for increased agricultural trade, prime areas for growing mutually beneficial industrial investment by U.S. businesses in Vietnam, and trade collaboration for technology, machinery and equipment to increase value-added production.