During rush hours, a growing number of electric bikes can be seen in Hanoi' s narrow streets, weaving in and out of the heavy traffic along with motorcycles and scooters.
A large portion of the electric bikes on Vietnam's roads are Chinese branded, as Chinese electric bike manufacturers, attracted by huge market opportunities, have built factories in the country, which is known as "a motorcycle kingdom".
GROWING ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT
Over a year ago, China's Yadea Science and Technology Company settled in an industrial park in Hanoi. Now, it has an 8,000-square-meter factory with a monthly production capacity of around 12,000 electric bikes.
Inside Yadea's workshop, employees are busy assembling component parts on the production line, which churns out a shiny electric bike every a few minutes.
In the warehouse, electric bikes are placed in an orderly fashion. Some of them are sought after in the Vietnamese market while others are strongly favored by Chinese customers.
"Vietnam is known as 'a motorcycle kingdom'. However, motorcycles are costly and environmentally unfriendly. Now, more and more people in Vietnam have turned to use electric bikes," Yadea's General Manager Lv Gang told Xinhua in an interview.
Yadea's success in Hanoi is a microcosm of the growing trade and economic engagement between China and Vietnam, offering a glimpse into the promising future of their mutually-beneficial cooperation in production capacity.
Official statistics show that bilateral trade volume reached 64.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters of 2015, up 12 percent year-on-year.
China has been Vietnam's largest trading partner for 11 consecutive years, while Vietnam became China's second-largest partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2014.
HUGE COOPERATION POTENTIAL
What's heartening is that capacity cooperation between Vietnam and China is set to display greater potential as the "Belt and Road" initiative proposed by China and Vietnam' s "Two Corridors and One Economic Circle" plan might hook up.
The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative is meant to strengthen cooperation in international trade and infrastructure projects. Vietnam' s plan was proposed by its leaders during a visit to China in May 2004, with an aim to strengthen economic links among 10 Chinese and Vietnamese provinces and municipalities.
