The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, the base of the Vietnam-Russia oil and gas joint venture Vietsovpetro, wants to attract more investment from Russian businesses under bilateral cooperation agreements.

Local officials expressed the intention at a working session on May 7 with a monitoring team of the National Assembly’s Committee for External Relations on the implementation of agreements between Vietnam and Russia. 

Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Tinh said Vietsovpetro has made important contributions to local economic development. 

He added that Vietsopetro aside, economic ties between Ba Ria-Vung Tau and other Russian localities remain below expectations, despite the locality’s efforts to seek cooperation opportunities and partners.  

The province’s officials explained that the great distance between the two countries and a lack of orientation for cooperation by the government have caused difficulties to the search for and establishment of ties with Russian partners. 

Ba Ria – Vung Tau is committed to providing the biggest possible support for Russian enterprises to invest and do business in the province, they said. 

According to the province’s reports, Ba Ria –Vung Tau has so far signed cooperation agreements in economic, cultural and social fields with four Russian localities, which are Rostov and Sverdlovsk provinces (in 2000), Nenetskiy autonomous region (2010) and Bashkortostan Republic (in 2017). The province plans to ink a plan of actions to implement the MoU on cooperation with the Nenetskiy autonomous region for 2019-2021 this year. 

Head of the NA monitoring team, Chairman of the NA’s Committee for External Relations Nguyen Van Giau agreed that the Government should revisit agreements signed with Russia with a view to improving the efficiency of cooperative ties.