Exclusive Interview: Luxembourg PM's Reflections on Official Visit to Vietnam

Towards the end of the visit of Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, and the official delegation to Vietnam last week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Chronicle.lu had the opportunity to sit down with the Prime Minister to discuss various aspects of the visit.

Chronicle.lu: The collaboration between Luxembourg and Vietnam started with development cooperation and then also with economic ties. Where/how do you see the future between the two countries? Will existing sectors be expanded or will new sectors come into play?

Prime Minister Bettel: I think with the visit we have done today and yesterday we see that there is a lot of potential. This morning, we were on the River Saigon where we see a huge investment for preserving the climate, so against climate change, and that this is something we mostly don't know. The insurances of all these works are based in Luxembourg because of the Triple-A [credit rating] and because of the competences of Luxembourg services. So, we are an actor here. That is just one example of you didn't know that billions of investments are done through Luxembourg. We visited a car company which is a fully-electric car company where they produce 800 cars a day. We see that there is a huge potential because they are looking also for a place in Luxembourg. So, there are different things. The first thing is how to put Luxembourg on the map: that sometimes sounds strange, but for some business people, they don't know Luxembourg, and when they get contact with Luxembourg, they are interested. This was this meeting this morning that [Minister] Lex Delles chaired. We have with finance the opportunities to exchange, but also they learned from us, with the legal framework and also the banking system also has been done together with Luxembourgish knowledge. We see that green finance and bonds are working well together: between the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, there are really close ties becoming closer every day. So, from my point of view, there are huge opportunities already and when we have today over 200 people at a business meeting, that is not very usual for Luxembourgish economic forums that we organise, so it is a big success from both sides, from the Luxembourgish side and the Vietnamese side.

Chronicle.lu: The tour of the VinFast factory complex was fascinating. How did this come about? Did we ask for it to be included in the itinerary or was it proposed by Vietnam? How do you think Luxembourg can be involved in the future in this project? Could that help to accelerate Luxembourg’s move towards electric transport?

Prime Minister Bettel: To be very transparent, it was a diplomat who knows Vietnam well, a Luxembourgish diplomat based in Bangkok, Ambassador Baptista, who heard that they were looking for a place in Europe to go. And so we took contact a while ago but, then after COVID [pandemic] there was no news. So we thought it was the opportunity to remind the contacts he took a few years ago. They decided to open different places in Europe to sell the cars (the Netherlands, Germany and France). We told them everything Luxembourg has to offer for a hub, for a central office, for different opportunities, and the result is that the boss of the company is coming in a few weeks to visit Luxembourg and to meet me. So that's something we wouldn't have guessed before.

Chronicle.lu: The news about the airport at Ho Chi Minh City now allowing Cargolux planes is interesting- do you feel this will mean simply that some (or even more) products from the southern region of Vietnam will get to Europe faster, or could it lead to increased trade for Cargolux?

Prime Minister Bettel: I can tell you that for Cargolux this is good news. I met the responsible person for Cargolux here today and he told me that they were waiting four years to have it, and we did it now in a few hours. So, when we spoke the first time, five months ago when the Prime Minister [of Vietnam] visited Luxembourg, and today the problem is resolved. So, this is why such visits are sometimes important. Personal contacts are often more efficient that writing procedures.

Chronicle.lu: Staying on the topic of transport, does Luxembourg plan to expand its logistics services/centres in the Grand Duchy? If so, where and how?

Prime Minister Bettel: There is a visit now, for the moment, of a logistics company with [Minister] Lex Delles with which Luxembourg is working. We are a hub in logistics, that's for sure. If Cargolux has the opportunity to come more often here, to do more trips to Ho Chi Minh City, it's better for the company; it will bring more logistics to Europe and also to Luxembourg. So, we believe that the opportunities to bring items to Luxembourg and then also dispatching it through the multimodal, then we can use the CFL.

Chronicle.lu: Are there any things you have seen or witnessed in Vietnam that you would consider as “take-aways”, i.e. from cultural, economic or even infrastructure perspectives that you think could benefit Luxembourg?

Prime Minister Bettel: I think that it's an experience to see Vietnam. The people are very nice, the people are very open. this morning I did something that is not very "protocol" but I had an exchange with a coffee producer who is growing coffee beans- it is not known that Vietnam is a big producer of coffee. To learn from them, no one has to teach each other, we have to learn from each other. I loved the experience here- we have different political systems and we spoke also about that. It's the fact that we try to make people's lives better every day. For Luxembourg, it's a better economy tomorrow and for good relations with neighbours and other countries even if they are not neighbours.

This interview was carried out by Geoff Thompson in Hanoi towards the conclusion of the visit by Prime Minister Bettel and the official delegation to Vietnam.