Vietnam-New Zealand bilateral trade is expected to rise to $1.7 billion this year as the two sides are working to upgrade their relations to a strategic partnership and both are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Vietnam is New Zealand’s sixteenth largest trade partner at present.
Bilateral trade enjoyed a three-fold increase in the decade since the two countries established their comprehensive partnership from $320 million in 2009 to over $1 billion in 2018, according to the Vietnamese Trade Office in New Zealand.
New Zealand needs to import commodities like garment, textiles, footwear, wood, tropical farm produce and fisheries products that are Vietnam’s strengths, while the latter needs to import milk and dairy products, wine, lamb, fruit and raw materials for garment and textiles and footwear from the former, according to a report in a Vietnamese daily.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is scheduled to take part in the ASEAN-New Zealand Leaders’ Summit. The ministerial-level Economic and Trade Joint Committee, established in 2005 by the two sides, is expected to convene its seventh meeting in the fourth quarter of this year in New Zealand to seek additional measures to expand bilateral trade.
