Surpassing the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations, Vietnam and Belgium are significantly expanding cooperation in various fields such as trade, investment, science and technology, and green growth. Recently, both countries have been elevating their economic partnership to a new level by vitalizing high-level exchanges centered around Brussels.

The official visit to Belgium by Tô Lâm, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President of Vietnam, is evaluated as an important momentum to inject new life into bilateral relations. Through this visit, both countries are broadening the scope of cooperation beyond traditional commodity trade into high-value-added industries and future-oriented agendas.

Belgium has positioned itself as a core trading partner of Vietnam within the European Union (EU). According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Belgium is Vietnam's 6th largest trading partner, 5th largest export market, and 7th largest import market within the EU. Conversely, Vietnam maintains a solid status as Belgium's largest trading partner in the ASEAN region. From 2015 to 2025, the bilateral trade volume recorded an annual average of $3.44 billion.

The growth trend continued into this year. During the first 8 months of 2026, bilateral trade increased by 4.7 percent year-on-year to reach $3.1 billion. In this period, Vietnam's exports to Belgium rose by 10.4 percent to $2.7 billion, while imports stood at a scale of $39.8 billion. Since the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took effect in 2020, bilateral trade has surged by more than 40 percent, proving substantive achievements.

Both countries are actively expanding the horizon of economic cooperation into green technology, logistics, and smart agriculture. Pieter Leenknegt, the Belgian Ambassador to Vietnam, emphasized that digital transformation, green transition, robotics, renewable energy, and energy storage systems are promising areas of cooperation.

In particular, offshore wind power is cited as a representative field where the strengths of both countries can combine. Vietnam possesses abundant wind power potential along its coastline, while Belgium is equipped with advanced technology and experience in offshore wind development, energy storage, and industrial power integration. The combination of these two elements is expected to generate massive synergy across the value chain.

Logistics and maritime connectivity are also core axes of cooperation. Belgium's large ports and multimodal transport network serve as a gateway to Europe, while Vietnam is located at a strategic hub in ASEAN. Port cooperation connecting the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge with Haiphong and the Mekong Delta region serves as an opportunity to further strengthen trade connectivity and eco-friendly supply chains.

Along with this, the circular economy, waste management, and waste-to-energy technologies are emerging as promising fields. This is because Vietnam's rapid industrialization and urbanization are driving a surge in demand for efficient resource utilization and waste treatment. Both countries are also exploring possibilities for cooperation in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and food processing.

The Vietnam-Belgium Friendship Association emphasized that beyond trade promotion and government-level management, the role of public diplomacy must be actively utilized. It pointed out that long-term science and technology cooperation plans, economic forums, and business-to-business matching programs aiming for concrete results should lead to substantive commercial outcomes.

The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency plans to dispatch a trade and investment promotion delegation connecting Belgium and the Netherlands from November 14 to 22. This visit focuses on supporting Vietnamese enterprises in discovering European partners, expanding their foothold in the EU market, and particularly deeply joining high-tech supply chains such as semiconductors, electronics, precision machinery, and automation.

Together with the ratification of the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), such institutional and private efforts are expected to further thicken investor confidence between the two countries. Vietnam and Belgium plan to continue consolidating their partnership toward sustainable growth based on mutually complementary strengths.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]