Party General Secretary amd State President Tô Lâm maeks a speech at the FrancoTech 2024. — VNA/VNS Photo Trí Dũng

PARIS — The Francophonie space, boasting a population of more than 1.2 billion people and accounting for 16 per cent of the global GDP and 20 per cent of the global trade, has been a potential land for economic and investment cooperation and trade exchange, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Việt Nam Central Committee and State President Tô Lâm said on October 4.

Lâm made the statement while delivering a speech at the FrancoTech 2024, a trade fair for innovation, as part of his trip for attendance at the 19th Francophonie Summit and official visit to France from October 3-7.

The Vietnamese leader highly appreciated the forum which focuses on the five themes of AI, energy transition, human capital, logistics and food security and innovation. These are key issues of interest to Việt Nam, with a young and dynamic population as well as rapid development of the digital economy.

He highlighted that Việt Nam, from a backward economy, has risen to rank among the top 40 economies and the top 20 economies with largest trade value in the world, adding that science, technology and innovation are the essential choice of Việt Nam in its journey to a new era, the era of the nation's rise.

As Việt Nam eyes to become a modern industrial nation, the Southeast Asian country wants to step up closer cooperation with partners, including France and other Francophonie states, to develop spearhead industrial sectors such as IT, AI, semiconductor and green hydrogen and promote innovation and startups.

He took this occasion to call on Francophonie enterprises to continue investment in Việt Nam, stating the country is creating an increasingly favourable business climate with a multitude of incentives, helping firms grow into large corporations with international stature, as well as standing ready to support African countries in the spirit of “going together to go far”.

The top leader affirmed the huge potential and close cooperation between Việt Nam and France as well as the Francophonie community as a whole will open up new chapters in their collaboration, contributing to the development of enterprises and each nation.

Visiting booths of FPT, Vietnam Airlines, VinFast and VietJet at an exhibition space arranged in the framework of the summit, Lâm encouraged the firms to enhance collaboration with their Francophonie partners and asked them to continue stepping up investment, research and creativity.

He also witnessed the handover of an agricultural cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Benin.

As many as 1,500 heads of states and governments, entrepreneurs, experts and scholars from more than 100 countries have gathered at the summit on October 3-4. Notable Francophonie enterprises at the event include AirFrance, Orange, Mistral AI and Clever Cloud (France), Africa Global Logistics, APIX (Senegal), Novation City (Tunisia) and Congo Numérique (Congo), among others. —VNS