Vietnam and Myanmar seek breakthroughs in trade and investment by targeting $1 billion in bilateral trade, supporting Vietnamese businesses and expanding cooperation in digital transformation, agriculture, telecom, logistics and education.
With Vietnam's Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung on an official visit to Myanmar along with the 10th session of Vietnam-Myanmar Joint Committee for Bilateral Cooperation, there have been efforts made by both countries to strengthen the economic relationship between them by enhancing trade and cooperation among various sectors.
As mentioned by President Min Aung Hlaing of Myanmar, there is a call for innovations on issues regarding defence, economics, trade, and investments since there have been significant reductions in terms of economic engagement compared to before the pandemic. Bilateral trade decreases from $853 million in 2020 to $590 million in 2025 and trade at $335 million in 2026.
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Myanmar will also reiterate its commitment to Vietnamese enterprises working in Myanmar and hopes to receive more investments from Vietnam in fields such as telecommunications, education and training, agriculture, food processing, logistics, and digital transformation.
On the other hand, Vietnam puts forward ideas regarding how cooperation can be practically conducted and help businesses. According to Trung, there is need to develop a digital transformation program between Vietnam and Myanmar by starting with pilots first.
In the 10th meeting of the Joint Committee, both nations commit themselves to enhancing collaboration via government-to-government, parliament-to-parliament, locality-to-locality, and people-to-people channels. At the same time, both strive for making good use of current collaboration mechanisms and developing closer relations before the 10th anniversary of the comprehensive cooperative partnership in 2027.
Trade development is a top priority. There is an agreement between Vietnam and Myanmar to hold the 11th meeting of the Joint Trade Sub-Committee to discuss trade issues and come up with measures for enhancing bilateral trade to $1 billion. Both sides are to review all existing agreements on trade, customs and investments while simplifying the process of importing and customs clearance.
Myanmar is particularly interested in encouraging investment from Vietnam in areas where it has increasing demands. The telecommunication companies in Vietnam are already working in the area of communications for Myanmar, but Myanmar wants more involvement in the digital economy from Vietnam.
In addition, the two nations have other opportunities in areas such as transport, agriculture, tourism, financial and banking services, communications, culture, sports, and education. One of the suggestions made by Vietnam is that there should be cooperation between Vietnam, Myanmar, and Laos in improving the transport network.
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Beyond economic cooperation, the two parties also commit themselves to enhancing defense and security cooperation through delegation visits, training, young officers’ programs and collaboration in disaster relief, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and military medicine. They reiterate their commitment to coordinating on crimes related to drugs and cyber crimes.
The current debates capture the two nations’ attempts to turn their political relationships into economic relationships. With trade facilitation, digitalization, infrastructure development, agriculture, and investments becoming key areas, both Vietnam and Myanmar aspire to forge closer business relations to meet the bilateral trade objective of $1 billion.