Slovenija in Vietnam
Opportunities abound for cooperation
On the occasion of the visit of the Vietnamese delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Le Thi Thung Hang to Slovenia, on 11 March, the Forward Institute organised a meeting with representatives of business, science, education and other sectors interested in cooperation with Slovenia. Despite the 30th anniversary of diplomatic and economic relations between Slovenia and Vietnam this year, there has not been much cooperation so far; the total trade between the two countries is barely more than a hundred million euros a year, although opportunities for cooperation are not scarce.
As Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon noted when she visited Vietnam last October, “Vietnam is one of the most promising markets in Southeast Asia, mainly because of the global trend towards market diversification.” The two countries have already identified transport, logistics, ICT and tourism as the most promising areas for cooperation in 2019, followed by connectivity, green technologies and digitalisation last year. There are also good opportunities for cooperation in agriculture, tourism, culture, science and innovation, environment, climate and energy, space technology and development cooperation.
One of the key areas of cooperation at this time is certainly in the field of education, where Vietnam still has a great need, despite its 250 or so universities. As the guests said, the country of 100 million people currently has around two million students, of whom 200 000 are studying abroad, most of them, around 70 000, in South Korea. Japan is next with 37 000 students, followed by English-speaking countries, among which the USA is the most popular. Around 40 000 Vietnamese are also studying in the European Union, mostly in Germany, but there is also growing interest in post-socialist countries such as Hungary, where around 200 scholarships were awarded last year alone, with slightly fewer in Poland, where almost 100 scholarships were offered to Vietnamese students this year, and even a handful in Ukraine, while at the moment there are only two Vietnamese students in Slovenia.
The opportunities for foreign students to study at Vietnamese universities are also significant; the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking lists six Vietnamese universities among the top 500 universities in the world. Compared to other international study destinations, Vietnam offers more affordable diplomas and masters degrees. Annual tuition fees at public schools are low, ranging from free to around $1 000 for Vietnamese students, or around twice that for foreign students. Moreover, living in this tropical and tourist-attractive country – with its socialist system – is relatively cheap, and there are also casual jobs available for students.
The opportunities for cooperation – both in Erasmus student exchanges and between universities on development projects, either directly or through the Horizon Europe programme – are really great, agreed Slovenian Education Minister Igor Papič, adding that it is worth starting to encourage them.
Both countries are also interested in closer cooperation between Slovenian and Vietnamese faculties, following the example of Moscow Lomonosov State University and the Faculty of Management in Koper, as well as development institutes in both countries. The partnership between the Lighting and Photometry Laboratory of the Ljubljana Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Vietnamese universities in the development of energy efficiency in the field of lighting technology was mentioned as an example of good practice. In addition to Slovenia, Finland and the Netherlands were also involved in the project, which ran for four years and ended last November.
Dr Miha Sekavčnik, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Ljubljana, presented four possible areas of cooperation for his faculty to the Vietnamese guests. These include factories of the future, green mobility, sustainable energy and, in the field of health, diagnostic technologies and prosthetics. The possibility of cooperation in the field of nuclear energy was highlighted by Miroslav Gregorič – currently a Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the ASEA Parliamentary Friendship Group, which includes Vietnam – who has previously worked extensively on nuclear energy. Vietnam is planning to build several small nuclear power plants and could benefit from the experience of the Jožef Stefan Institute with its research nuclear reactor, which has been in operation for half a century.
As an export-oriented country, Slovenia is also looking for opportunities in new markets, noted Otmar Zorn, a businessman and founder of the Inštitut NAPREJ. Nine-tenths of our exports are to Western markets, which is a guarantee for the quality as well as the quantity of our products. Therefore, with a fully employed population, and currently at historic lows in unemployment, our economy needs additional labour. And Vietnam, with a population of one hundred million, has plenty of it; as Nguyen Trung Tien, the Vietnamese Ambassador to Austria, who is also responsible for Slovenia, said, seven million Vietnamese are economic migrants, and that is why the Vietnamese side is also interested in cooperation in this area.
Slovenia has concluded relevant inter-state agreements with the Philippines, from where workers are already coming to Slovenia, and we could cooperate in a similar way with Vietnam, said Srečko Debelak, Honorary Consul of the Philippines. He presented his experience with Filipino workers and the way of cooperation with the Philippine Ministry of Migration. An agreement is currently being drafted to facilitate the exchange and could also serve as a model for sending Vietnamese workers to Slovenia. In this context, it is worth checking the administrative procedures needed to obtain a work permit, to examine which sectors in Slovenia would be most interesting for potential Vietnamese workers and to explore the interest among specific companies.
Vietnamese guests have also expressed their willingness to cooperate in this area, but the problem is that, although diplomatic relations have been established, the two countries do not yet have embassies on each other’s territory. Thus, while Vietnam is under the responsibility of our embassy in Beijing, Vietnamese affairs in Slovenia are currently under the responsibility of their embassy in Vienna. The situation will improve once an Honorary Consul for Vietnam is established in Slovenia, said Andrej Ribič, a businessman and member of the Freedom Movement, and President of the Slovenian Canoe Federation, who was present at the meeting.
Both sides supported the initiative to organise a visit of a Slovenian delegation with representatives of the development, education and economic spheres to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to continue and possibly concretise the talks.
Author: (B. M.)
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