Speech by the Prince of Orange

Deputy Prime Minister Hung, ministers, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure and an honour for me to address this important gathering. Never in the history of our two countries has such a wealth of mutual interests, shared experience, and cooperative spirit been gathered together under one roof.

Vietnam and the Netherlands share more than four centuries of history, going back to the first trading contacts between the Dutch East India Company and the kingdoms of Than Long and Qui nam in the early 17th century. But we should also acknowledge that during those turbulent centuries we were never really at the centre of each other's sphere of interest. Many historic events and encounters are known only to a handful of connoisseurs.

Jan George Mulder, for instance, was a Dutch oil salesman who lived and worked in French Indochina in the early 20th century. He left a large collection of photographs of his years in Hai Phong, a unique visual record of domestic scenes and views of the city, the port area and the surrounding countryside, including the embryonic beach resort of Do Son. The atmosphere of the photographs evokes a Vietnamese version of 'the lunch in the grass' (Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe) by Manet. Yet not one of these pictures is accompanied by a caption. So, instead of reviving the past, they seem to foreshadow a future in which the past is forgotten.

Still, I am happy to note that our common future has turned out to be much brighter. Rediscovering the constant factors of our relationship is very rewarding, perhaps precisely because they are sometimes so unexpected.

Today, Vietnam and the Netherlands enjoy excellent bilateral relations and maintain frequent high-level contacts. Ministers and high officials visit one another with increasing frequency, often accompanied by business leaders and experts in areas of mutual interest. Our delegation this week, led by foreign trade minister Henk Bleker, includes over a hundred business representatives, making it one of the biggest that I have ever had the honour to be associated with. In other sectors, too, like higher education, culture and tourism, our contacts have multiplied in recent decades. The twenty thousand Dutch residents of Vietnamese origin continue to play a special role in this regard.

Vietnam today is displaying impressive levels of socioeconomic success. In the last decade the country has achieved export-oriented economic growth of seven per cent on average. This has reduced poverty levels from 60 per cent to 10 per cent in an extremely short period. It also makes Vietnam one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. At the same time, Vietnam has become further integrated into the global economy through its accession to the WTO, and as a leader in ASEAN.

Due to its strategic location in Southeast Asia, just south of China, with a long coastline and two important river deltas, Vietnam has great potential to produce for, trade with and distribute to around half-a-billion consumers in southern China, plus another half-billion throughout the ASEAN region. Perhaps we are looking at a dragon rather than a tiger!
Vietnam is now a middle-income country and aims to become a fully-fledged industrialised nation by 2020. In the next phase of development, macroeconomic stability needs to be maintained while feeding further value and quality into the economic process. Developing higher education, sustaining value chains and adapting to climate change have become essential themes. This is also true for further reforms in the area of good governance. Continuation of these policies, based on the choices of the 11th national congress, will no doubt help improve Vietnam's competitive position. It will open the way to a free trade agreement with the European Union. And it will foster Vietnam's ongoing regional and international integration.

The Netherlands hopes to remain an active participant in these processes. We are already the number one EU investor in Vietnam, and we continue to see Vietnam as a promising and attractive emerging market. Although we are a relatively small country, we are used to operating on a global scale. We're eager to work with strategic partners like Vietnam on equal footing to our mutual benefit.

As our ancestors understood, both our countries' economic prospects are determined by their strategic location on river deltas, serving as gateways to much bigger continental land masses. Deltas and gateways are therefore the key themes of our mission to Vietnam. This is the shared identity that underscores our common history - and could shape our common future.

Building on the 'deltas and gateways' theme, after close consultation, Vietnam and the Netherlands have identified five key sectors where strategic cooperation should be mutual profitable. These are the sectors represented in this mission: water, agriculture, transport and logistics, the maritime sector and oil and gas.

The Netherlands' experience and expertise in water and delta technology is world renowned, and has always been essential to our survival as a low-lying country. For many years now, we have been a partner to Vietnam in improving flood controls and drinking water supplies. Now that the effects of climate change are forcing delta areas to rethink their adaptation strategies, I am proud to recall the Strategic Partnership Agreement on Climate Change and Water Management which our respective prime ministers signed at the end of last year.

The agreement provides for a wide range of joint activities, steered by an intergovernmental committee at ministerial level and led from our side by Joop Atsma, State Secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment. With this agreement in mind, we have included some of our top engineering firms and universities in this mission, and they are eager to share their expertise. And crucially, Professor Cees Veerman, who was responsible for the comprehensive delta proposals that should keep the Netherlands safe and dry for the next century, will act as a special adviser to Prime Minister Dung under this agreement. We are truly sending the very best we have on offer!

Our delta is not only low lying, it is also fertile. Agriculture and related industries have always been a key economic sector. Not everybody knows that the Netherlands, despite its small size, is actually the second-biggest agricultural exporter in the world. Inspired by challenges of scale and their international orientation, Dutch producers and research institutes have developed specific knowledge and expertise. These skills could be well suited to assist in Vietnam's ongoing efforts to modernise its agricultural sector, increase productivity and improve food security across the agricultural chain. We hope to visit existing investment projects and discuss future possibilities with Vietnamese partners in the next few days. For a gateway to reach its full potential as a regional distribution hub, excellent transport and logistics are key. The Netherlands, the gateway to Europe, is a distribution country par excellence, with expertise in land, sea and air transport and logistics management in a highly competitive environment. In this connection, I'm glad to see the kind of strategic cooperation that is taking shape between our countries, led by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, which has been sharing its business model both here in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City.

We have always been a seafaring nation, as shown once again by our countries' shared history. The Dutch maritime industry has always had a global reach, and has continued innovating in order to remain competitive. I look forward to visiting the port and container terminals at Ho Chi Minh City with our business leaders and getting a sense of where we can assist you in realising your ambitious development plans.

Finally, there is one last sector that has helped define our delta as a gateway: oil and gas. The Netherlands is the second-largest importer and exporter of oil in the world. As a global transit and redistribution centre and home to world-renowned companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Vopak, we believe we have essential innovative expertise to share, for both upstream and downstream solutions. We hope to discuss business opportunities with you over the next few days.

As I have said, we have jointly concluded that these five sectors offer the best prospects for strategic cooperation between our two countries, thanks to our common experience of the challenges and opportunities of deltas and gateways. These are the areas in which we can provide you with innovative and sustainable solutions for further development, introducing global standards for responsible entrepreneurship that should fit Vietnam's ambitions like a glove.

Deputy Prime Minister Hung,

Thank you for your kind words, and for the warm hospitality the Vietnamese government and business community have shown us. I last visited your country five years ago and once again I am most impressed by the progress being made here. I know that you and Mr Vinh have visited the Netherlands before, and I very much hope that a further intensifying of relations will follow. We believe that a strategic partnership is a two-way street. We would be delighted to offer your companies and institutions our modern infrastructure as your gateway to Europe. And we'll make sure that you feel as welcome in the Netherlands as we feel here in Vietnam!

Ladies and gentlemen,

Jan George Mulder, the early 20th-century businessman and photographer that I mentioned earlier, clearly had good reason to settle in Hai Phong, 'the guardian of the sea', from where trade extended into the Red River delta as far as Yunnan. Even though his pictures tell us little about the images he captured, we can understand why he was there. It all comes back to those shared identities: deltas and gateways…

Sometimes two countries - like people - suddenly discover that they have a lot more in common than they once thought. And it's only when they look back together, at their shared history of past encounters, that it all suddenly seems so fitting. Perhaps even inevitable.

So let me now propose a toast to the wellbeing and prosperity of the government and people of Vietnam. And to our deltas and gateways!