Vietnam, Cuba step up financial and trade ties

During his August 24 talks with Cuban Minister of Finance and Prices, Lina Olinda Pedraza Rodríguez, Minister Dung affirmed that the Vietnamese Government’s guideline is to continuously strengthen the special friendship and solidarity that exists between Vietnam and Cuba, and to share experience and support Cuba in the fields of bilateral cooperation, including finance.

The Vietnamese Finance Ministry always gives priority to and regards the Vietnam-Cuba financial cooperation as a long-term, substantive and effective cooperative programme, he stated.

Concerning the issue of collaboration between the two ministries, he suggested that both sides regularly maintain and improve the efficiency of the existing cooperative mechanisms, contributing to promoting economic, trade and investment ties between the two nations in commensuration with the bilateral trusted political relations which have been increasingly strengthened.

The two sides need to continue effectively implementing the Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral cooperation in the period of 2016-2020, focusing on the fields of tax system management and reforms and training treasury human resources, Dung said, stressing the need to execute specific contents and projects under the cooperation framework of the Vietnam-Cuba Intergovernmental Committee.

Minister of Finance and Prices, Lina Olinda Pedraza Rodríguez, highlighted the significance of the historical relationship between Vietnam and Cuba, whilst speaking highly of the advancements in sharing experience and negotiating joint investment projects.

She voiced her wish to accelerate ties with the Vietnamese Customs in the context that the Cuban Customs is executing an open-door policy aiming to ensure security and safety for international flights. Furthermore, both sides should consider the signing of a cooperation programme in order to facilitate experience sharing and the exchange of high-level delegations, in addition to deploying collaboration activities in combating smuggling.

On the same day, Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung met with Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, Vice President of the Cuban Council of Ministers and Minister of Planning and Investment.

During the visit, the Vietnamese Finance Ministry also sent a delegation of officials of the General Department of Taxation to Cuba, in order to coordinate with the Cuban Ministry of Finance and Prices to organise a workshop on tax management, aiming to meet Cuba’s demand for exploring experience within the field.