The U.S. hopes to foster cooperation with Vietnam in economy and trade, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who paid a working visit to the Southeast Asian country between Tuesday and Friday, said during a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Hanoi on Thursday.

Yellen affirmed that Vietnam is an increasingly important partner of the U.S. and plays a key role in its Indo-Pacific Strategy.

The U.S. has had plans to boost the collaboration with Vietnam in supply chains and support the Southeast Asian country in semiconductor production and renewable energy. 

The U.S. Department of the Treasury will further work with the State Bank of Vietnam and the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance on monetary and exchange rate policies, and other macro-economic issues, she said.

They will back Vietnam to access international financial resources.

For his part, PM Chinh reiterated that Vietnam always considers the U.S. as one of its leading partners, hailing the maintenance of exchanges of high-ranking delegations between the two sides, especially the phone talks between Vietnam's Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and U.S. President Joe Biden in late March.

The prime minister welcomed the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s cooperation programs and objective and appropriate assessments on Vietnam’s monetary and exchange rate policies, socio-economic performance, as well as key orientations in its financial and monetary policies over the past period.

PM Chinh suggested the two sides continue exchanges of delegations at all levels, enhance the connectivity of the two economies, and step up the cooperation in economy, trade and investment, giving priority to green growth, innovation, hi-tech, and supply chains.

He asked the State Bank of Vietnam and the U.S. Department of the Treasury to keep resolving issues through dialogue amid the global market volatility.

The Vietnamese official also called for stronger collaboration in climate change response and the implementation of the Just Energy Transition Partnership in a bid to support Vietnam to develop its renewable energy and establish a carbon market.

He added that expanding supply chains and chip and semiconductor production is also a priority in Vietnam’s development strategy, informing that the nation is bolstering the development of preferential policies and infrastructure, the improvement of governance, and the training of human resources in these sectors.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen also met with Chairman of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Tran Tuan Anh on the same day.

Anh spoke highly of the thriving economic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. with their bilateral trade hitting a record last year.

He added that the potential for Vietnam to lure high-quality investment from the U.S. was huge.

He suggested the U.S. Department of the Treasury continue working closely with Vietnam and making objective assessments on Vietnam's monetary policy management, thus contributing to boosting the bilateral economic, trade, and investment ties.

The U.S. treasury secretary emphasized the potential for the two countries’ collaboration in just energy transition, pledging that the U.S. and partners will be willing to help Vietnam with capital and technology to accelerate the process and become an important link in the development of a diverse and sustainable supply chain, including in the semiconductor sector.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to Vietnam takes place at a time when the two nations are celebrating a decade of their comprehensive partnership.

Vietnam and the U.S. established their diplomatic relations in 1995 and upgraded their ties to a comprehensive partnership in 2013.

Their two-way trade exceeded US$123 billion last year, making the U.S. the second-largest trade partner of Vietnam.

The figure reached over $46.5 billion in the first five months of this year, with Vietnam exporting $43.5 billion worth of products stateside and spending some $3 billion on imports from the U.S., the Vietnam News Agency reported, citing data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The U.S. was Vietnam’s largest import market, while Vietnam was the seventh-largest trade partner of the U.S..

Vietnam made up about 35 percent of ASEAN’s total exports stateside in the five-month period.

The U.S. currently ranks eleventh among the 142 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

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