Four Australian businesses presented their plans to invest in Vietnam to Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh when they had separate meetings with him in Canberra, Australia on Friday.

The meetings were scheduled as part of PM Chinh’s official visit to Australia, slated on March 7-9, after he attended the 2024 Australia-ASEAN Special Summit in Melbourne that ended on Wednesday.

Representing the first enterprise to meet PM Chinh, an executive of Corio Generation, a portfolio company of Macquarie Asset Management’s Green Investment Group, said Corio hopes to invest in offshore wind power development in Vietnam after having engaged in some renewable energy projects in Vietnam since 2019.

Earlier on March 5 at the Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne, under the witness of the Prime Minister, Corio Generation signed and handed over a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in developing wind power projects offshore Vietnam with Power Generation Joint Stock Corporation 3 under Vietnam Electricity (EVN).

The PM asked the company to coordinate with relevant Vietnamese ministries and partners to promptly set up specific offshore wind power projects that bring practical benefits to both sides.

He asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and other concerned agencies to facilitate Corio Generation in setting up its renewable energy projects.

The company should make a pilot project and submit it to Vietnam’s competent agencies for consideration, the PM said, and added he assigned Deputy PM Minister Tran Hong Ha to be in charge of this issue. 

He said Vietnam wants to develop the wind power industry, so he asked Corio not only to invest in this field but also to proceed with transfer of relevant technologies to the country.

At the two other separate meetings with PM Chinh, the leaders of two large mineral groups in Australia – Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASM), a producer of critical metals for advanced and clean technologies, and EQ Resources, a leading tungsten producer, expressed their wish to invest in the mining sector as well as mineral supply chains in Vietnam.

PM Chinh told both leaders that mineral projects should be developed using deep mining and processing technologies to create high quality mineral products, and should not be in the form of selling raw ores.

Such projects must be implemented in the spirit of harmonizing benefits and sharing risks, and meet environmental protection requirements.  

He also called them to conduct mineral technology transfer to Vietnam and help Vietnamese businesses to penetrate deeper into global mineral and metal supply chains.

Leaders of ASM and EQ Resources affirmed that they will develop projects in Vietnam in accordance with the PM’s directions, and expressed high appreciation for his message of harmonizing benefits and sharing risks.

At another meeting with PM Chinh, the leader of SunRice Group, the largest rice production and distribution conglomerate that accounts for 90 percent of Australia's rice market, presented to him the group’s plan to expand investment in Vietnam in the near future.

In 2008, this group bought a controlling interest in the Lap Vo rice processing factory in Dong Thap Province with a processing capacity of about 260,000 metric tons of dry rice a year.

SunRice has coordinated with the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) since 2022 to implement the project developing high-quality rice supply chains in the Mekong Delta, with the goal of developing high-quality rice varieties with sustainable productivity to serve the international consumer market.

PM Chinh hailed the group’s existing projects in Vietnam and applauded its intention to expand investment in the country.

He recommended that the conglomerate, with its network and influence, help connect Vietnamese partners with Australian partners to strengthen cooperation in the agricultural sector between the two countries in the future towards green production, healthy competition.

The head of the government also suggested SunRice to strengthen cooperation with and transfer technologies to Vietnamese rice businesses, support the development of the rice supply chain in Vietnam, and help Vietnamese exporters to deeper penetrate into the global rice supply chains. 

He also called on the group to engage in Vietnam’s ongoing project to grow one million ha of high-quality and low-emission rice in the Mekong Delta by 2030, according to the Vietnam News Agency.  

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