HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc had bilateral meetings with many foreign leaders and business executives on January 24 (local time) on the sidelines of the annual conference of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2019 in Davos.
The Vietnamese PM attended the Informal Gathering of World Economic Leaders (IGWEL) under the theme The World in the Age of Globilisation 4.0, and held a reception for Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Professor Klaus Schwab. The two then witnessed the signing of an agreement between the WEF and Việt Nam on building a centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and a letter of intent on developing initiatives for plastic waste treatment.

At a bilateral meeting with Dutch Queen Maxima who is the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, PM Phúc informed her that Việt Nam was building a national strategy on inclusive finance, which serves as an important foundation for the country to realise its socio-economic development targets and the UN’s sustainable development goals in general and inclusive finance goals in particular.

He took the occasion to invite the Dutch King and Queen to visit Việt Nam.
Talking with Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Carrie Lam, PM Phúc said that as Hong Kong was an important economic partner of Việt Nam, both sides should enhance exchanges and meetings.
Việt Nam was willing to create favourable conditions for large enterprises from Hong Kong to expand investment in the country, especially in the fields of transport, infrastructure development, electronic spare parts, supporting industry, processing, finance and banking, he said, hoping that Hong Kong firms would actively participate in the equitisation process in Vietnamese State-owned enterprises.
Speaking highly of the Hong Kong administration’s decision to exempt visas for Vietnamese diplomatic and official passport holders, PM Phúc asked the administration to ease visa requirements for Vietnamese people who come to study, work and run business in Hong Kong.
Receiving Vice President at the European Commission Jyrki Katainen, PM Phúc hailed the active development of Việt Nam - European Union (EU) ties with deeper mutual understanding and trust. 
Noting that the EU is currently the fourth biggest trade partner and the second largest export market of Việt Nam, the PM urged accelerating procedural work for the EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) to be signed and ratified in the first quarter of 2019, meeting mutual benefits and creating a new momentum for the bilateral relations, especially economic ties. 
He also hoped the EU will support Việt Nam to deal with the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and soon remove the yellow card against Việt Nam’s seafood exports to the EU.
Regarding the East Sea issue, the PM suggested the EU continue paying attention to navigation security and safety and supporting the settlement of disputes in the East Sea via peaceful means and in line with international law, the UN Charter and Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982.
Meeting with Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall, PM Phúc affirmed that Việt Nam always attached great importance to developing relations with traditional friendly countries in the East-Central Europe.
The PM congratulated Romania on taking over the EU Presidency in the first six months of 2019. He asked the country to push for the early signing and ratification of the EVFTA.
The two sides agreed to deepen the bilateral relations and effectively implement cooperation agreements, including signing a Protocol revising the agreement on double taxation avoidance, an agreement on cooperation in crime prevention and combat, a cultural cooperation programme in 2019-21, and a tourism cooperation agreement.
They also agreed to organise the meeting of the inter-governmental committee on cooperation in economy and science-technology in 2019.
During his talks with Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Angel Gurria, PM Phúc welcomed the organisation’s coordination with Việt Nam to build a national multidimensional review report and urged the completion of the report in 2019 to serve the review of the implementation of the socio-economic development strategy in 2011-2020 and the building of a development strategy for 2021-2030.
On this occasion, PM Phúc had a number of meetings with major groups in the world such as Siemens, Qualcomn, Google, Total, Allianz, JBIC, GE, and Prudential.—VNS