A Vietnam – Philippines business matching took place in Hanoi on September 6 to help Vietnamese enterprises explore opportunities to export goods and services to the Philippines.

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The event was co-held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade), the Vietnam Trade Office in the Philippines and the Association of Young Filipino-Chinese Entrepreneurs (Anvil Business Club). It was also part of a visit to Vietnam by a group of Philippine importers to seek partnership opportunities on September 5 – 8.

Present at the event were more than 200 organisations and businesses from both sides. The Philippine group included 52 companies in furniture, design, construction, automobile parts, electronics and real estate.

Le Hoang Tai, Vietrade deputy director, said the Vietnam – Philippine trade reached 4.7 billion USD last year, up 18 percent from 2017. The Philippines is currently Vietnam’s fifth largest trade partner in ASEAN and has emerged as a potential market for Vietnamese businesses in recent years.

In 2018, Vietnam exported about 2.2 billion USD worth of commodities to the Philippines with key export items like coffee, seafood, textile and garment, construction materials, and machinery.

In the first seven months of this year, the two-way trade rose more than 26 percent to over 3.2 billion USD, of which Vietnam’s exports were valued at 2.3 billion USD, up 24.23 percent.