Speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce, Hanoi

Australia and Vietnam – Partners for the Future

Hanoi, 2 July 2008

Thank you for that introduction and for your warm welcome.

I’m delighted to be in Vietnam to mark the 35^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and Vietnam. I am also pleased to have the opportunity to be the first Minister in the new Australian Government to conduct bilateral meetings in Vietnam, including with General Secretary of the Communist Party Manh, Prime Minister Dung, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Khiem and Minister of Planning and Investment Phuc. In fact, I have just come from a meeting with Prime Minister Dung where we discussed the full breadth of an increasingly dynamic relationship.

This is my first visit to Vietnam. Like many Australians of my generation, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for some time.

I’m also pleased to have this opportunity to speak to the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi.

I congratulate AusCham and all of you who live and work in Vietnam, for your contribution to continuously broadening the strong ties between our two nations.

Our two-way trade and investment relationship has been at the core of the remarkable growth in our relations.

The Australian business community and the Chamber has a great deal to be proud of.

I very much value the AusCham contribution, along with our missions in Vietnam, to further Australia’s trade and investment opportunities here.

I welcome news of recent Australian commercial successes here, including Australia’s Aquaculture. I look forward to success for some of our larger commercial operations in Vietnam.

Five minutes’ drive from Parliament House in Canberra, in the suburb of Griffith, is a Vietnamese restaurant often frequented by Members of Parliament.

The setting is nothing flashy, but the host is friendly and the food is inexpensive and excellent.

Guests are invited to leave messages on paper to be stuck on to the wall of the restaurant.

Mostly the messages compliment the food.

But there are some which pay tribute to how much our country has benefited from hardworking people from Vietnam who have chosen to make Australia home, and who over the decades have broadened our tastes and our outlook and enriched our nation.

There are some 175,000 people of Vietnamese birth living in Australia.

Reflecting the entrepreneurial spirit for which Vietnamese are famous, many have set up successful businesses, not just restaurants.
This community, like the Australian community here in Vietnam, play such an important role in broadening social, cultural and business contacts between our countries.

This year we celebrate 35 years of diplomatic relations with Vietnam. It demonstrates the long-standing nature of our partnership.

As Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, the length and significance of our relations is a legacy of which I am both conscious and proud.

On 26 February 1973 the Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Gough Whitlam established diplomatic relations between Canberra and Hanoi.

I am very proud to stand here as an Australian Labor Party Foreign Minister to mark this important milestone in a bilateral relationship to which Australia accords great significance.

In 1973 Australia placed a single Chargé d’Affaires in Hanoi.

Today our diplomatic presence in Vietnam comprises our Embassy in Hanoi and a Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City, with a combined staff of more than 170 people.

From a modest start 35 years ago, Australia and Vietnam have together laid the foundations for a broad-ranging bilateral relationship.

We now cooperate closely on issues ranging from defence to development, to education, law-enforcement, and trade and investment, and an array of transnational challenges, both regional and global.

These challenges include cooperation to combat pandemic threats such as avian influenza and HIV/AIDS, and transnational crime, including drug trafficking and people smuggling.

Our relationship is robust enough to discuss sensitive issues such as human rights, including through the regular Human Rights Dialogue, which Australia looks forward to hosting this year.

Australia and Vietnam signed our first trade agreement in 1974 and since then we have developed a strong trading and investment relationship.

Two-way trade between our two countries has more than doubled over the past five years and is now worth nearly $7 billion.

Education has been a standout performer. There are now about 10,000 Vietnamese students studying in Australia, more than any other English-speaking country. Some 10,000 more are studying through Australian institutions in Vietnam.

These education links are building up a rich network of alumni with knowledge and experience of Australia.

During this visit I will catch up with some of them, and hear their stories about what an Australian education has meant to them.

Prominent among our alumni, of course, is Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Khiem who studied in Canberra in the 1980s.

Our alumni are a huge asset to our relationship. They remain a constant source of advice and guidance for Vietnamese wanting to know more about Australia.

Development assistance has long been an important part of our relationship.

Vietnam is Australia’s fifth largest destination for overseas development assistance. Our total assistance in 2008-09 is estimated at $104.4 million.

The significance Vietnam places on our bilateral links is underlined by high level visits to Australia this year by senior Vietnamese leaders.

These have included:

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training, Dr Nhan in February, where he joined with the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the formal 35^th Anniversary celebration in Melbourne; the President of the National Assembly, Mr Trong, whom I met in March and who visited my own home State of Western Australia; and Deputy Prime Minister Trong in May.

The Australian Government warmly welcomes the contribution which these visits have made to cementing ongoing relations between us.

Much has changed in our two countries over the past 35 years.

Vietnam has been one of the best performing developing economies in the world and one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, with average annual GDP growth of 7.2 per cent over the past 10 years.

This strong economic growth, combined with Government-led poverty reduction intervention, has seen 30 million people lifted out of poverty over the past decade.

Vietnam has also transformed itself from rice importer to the second largest rice exporter in the world.

Australia strongly supported Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007.

This milestone in Vietnam’s stronger engagement with the global economy has opened up many opportunities.

The growth of the private sector has been a significant feature of economic development and it will support Vietnam’s goal of becoming an industrialised country by 2020.

It’s clear, though, that the world economy is facing some considerable challenges.

Inflation, high food prices and high fuel prices are having their impact in Vietnam, as they are around the world, including in Australia.

We wish Vietnam well in its efforts to tackle inflation and we welcome this month’s decision to lift the temporary ban on new rice exports.

The Australian Government believes that greater openness to trade offers assistance both against economic difficulties and in economic hard times.

Now is not the time to lose confidence in economic reform and openness.

The Australian Government is doing all it can to bring around a successful conclusion to the WTO Doha Round of negotiations this year.

We see many opportunities in trade and more broadly arising from cooperation in our region.

Vietnam plays an important role in our region.

It enjoys the strategic advantage of the Greater Mekong Subregion, which serves as a land bridge connecting the markets of China, South-East Asia and South Asia.

Vietnam’s increasing profile in international affairs, including as host of APEC in 2006 ahead of Australia in 2007 and its

2008-09 term on the UN Security Council, reflect its growing strategic importance in our region and internationally. As well Vietnam will chair ASEAN and the East Asia Summit in 2010.

Australia values its dialogue with Vietnam on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

We look forward to working closely with Vietnam within regional fora.

ASEAN, the oldest of our regional organisations, shows how regional cooperation and dialogue can be built.

Australia has been a long-standing supporter of ASEAN: in 1974, Australia became its first dialogue partner. We have worked on this partnership ever since.

We’re negotiating a comprehensive ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, to add to the bilateral FTAs already in place or being considered.

Our region’s primary multilateral security forum is the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which contributes to regional efforts on counter-terrorism, non-proliferation and maritime security capacity building.

With the strong support of Vietnam, Australia became a founding member of the East Asia Summit (EAS).

The Australian Government is committed to the EAS. I look forward to attending my first EAS Foreign Ministers’ meeting and ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Singapore in July.

The EAS is a major regional forum that can make a significant contribution to East Asian community building.

It has developed momentum on a range of priority issues including finance, energy security, avian influenza, education, disaster management and the environment.

Later this year Vietnam will host the first ever meeting of EAS Environment Ministers.

Vietnam and Australia hosted APEC in 2006 and 2007 respectively. APEC, which Australia is proud to have helped found, has a strong track record of forging regional prosperity and security.

APEC is doing excellent work in its core areas: trade and investment liberalisation and business facilitation.

It is now focusing on structural reform behind borders, as well as the possibility of a Free Trade Area for the Asia Pacific.

We are bolstering APEC’s human security agenda, and strengthening its institutional capacity. We want to bring India into the fold.

The Australian Government believes that APEC, ASEAN and the East Asia Summit processes can and should continue to develop in a complementary fashion.

They each make a unique contribution to regional relations and regional cooperation.

All of them act as useful conduits and catalysts for common action.

In the meantime, Australia has begun to think about how Asia’s regional organisations might evolve further, to meet future challenges whether security, economic or political.

That’s why, consistent with our stated goal of engaging comprehensively with the Asia-Pacific region, we have recently started discussing the idea of an Asia Pacific Community.

The Asia Pacific Community idea is about encouraging a conversation in our region about where our region wants to be in 2020.

It’s a conversation about the possibility of seeing a regional body that would:

span the Asia- Pacific, and include the United States, Japan, China, India and Indonesia; and

be able to engage in the full spectrum of economic, political, strategic and security matters.

This conversation doesn’t diminish existing regional bodies.

They continue to play important roles.

But, as currently configured, no one existing forum, for example, includes the United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and Australia and is able to consider both economic and strategic and security issues cooperatively.

I look forward to discussing the Asia Pacific Community concept in Vietnam.

My counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Khiem, and I begun last night a rich dialogue on these issues.

The long-standing and broad-ranging relationship Australia and Vietnam enjoy serves as a great foundation for the future as we continue to strengthen our partnership.

It is a relationship that has benefited both our countries and will continue to do so.

Australia’s relations with Vietnam are comprehensive but in the Australian Government’s view, can be further strengthened.

Now is a timely opportunity to take stock of what is important in our relationship, and to develop it further into the future.

Australia will be around for Vietnam for the long-term, during the good times and the more difficult ones.

I thank the Australian Chamber of Commerce for the invitation to speak to you today and congratulate you again on the commitment you continue to show in building an ever stronger relationship between our two nations.

For all of the companies who have done the hard yards in Vietnam, and for those who are newly entering the market, I wish you every success.

Thank you.