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Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Toivakka leads a Team Finland visit to Vietnam

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lenita Toivakka will make a Team Finland visit to Vietnam, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City together with a business delegation on 6–11 March 2016. The companies in the delegation represent education, cleantech and ICT.

"Both Finland and Vietnam aim at developing their commercial and economic relations. The visit offers an excellent opportunity for us to showcase leading-edge Finnish expertise in several sectors on the rapidly developing Vietnamese market of over 94 million consumers," Minister Toivakka says.

There will be high-level meetings and networking events, in which Finnish companies can promote their business contacts and projects in Vietnam. The Minister and her delegation members will meet both Vietnamese ministers and representatives of other state institutions and the city management of Ho Chi Minh.

In Ho Chi Minh, Minister Toivakka will hold a speech on education and innovation at the University of Ton Duc Thang. She will also pay a visit to a waste treatment complex in the Binh Duong province. The plant has been built using Finnish development cooperation funds.

Vietnam has developed fast and is now a lower middle income country. Its economic growth is stable, and last year its GDP accelerated to 6.7 per cent. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations were completed in December. There is much untapped potential in the trade between Finland and Vietnam, and the new FTA supports the growth of our trade.

Thanks to the decades of development cooperation, the Vietnamese consider Finland a reliable partner, and Finnish expertise has a particularly good name in the country. The aim of the visit is to help Finnish companies boost their trade with Vietnam. Additionally, Finland wants to expand and deepen the cooperation with Vietnam also in the coming years, after the bilateral development cooperation has gradually been phased down.

The visit is organised together with Finpro, which is part of Team Finland.

The following companies are represented in the Minister's delegation:

  • Aalto University Aalto EE
  • Cimson Oy/NEBA
  • Claned Group Oy
  • Comptel Corporation
  • EduCluster Finland Oy
  • Eltel Networks Oy
  • FCG Finnish Consulting Group Oy
  • Finland University Oy
  • Finnish Water Forum
  • Finnvera
  • Häme University of Applied Sciences
  • KaukoInternational Oy
  • Niras Finland Oy
  • Nokia Corporation
  • Nordautomation Oy
  • Outotec
  • Tekes
  • Vaisala Oyj
  • Vicus Capital Advisors Oy
  • Watrec Oy

Inquiries: Marita Meranto, Desk Officer, Unit for Eastern Asia and Oceania, tel. +358 400 445 035, and Juha Kirstilä, Special Adviser to the Minister, tel. +358 40 552 8200.