HANOI (Reuters) – Belgium’s King Philippe met Vietnamese leaders on Tuesday as the two countries signed deals to cooperate on areas including green hydrogen.
A large business, academic and political delegation is accompanying the king in the first visit to Vietnam by a Belgian monarch.
Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong said Philippe’s trip was a milestone in bilateral relations, according to Vietnamese state media.
He urged Belgium to ratify an investment protection agreement between Vietnam and the European Union, which was signed in 2019 but still needs to be ratified by a third of the EU’s 27 states, according to the EU Council website.
Top EU leaders are expected to travel to Vietnam in the coming weeks and months as they look to deepen relations between Hanoi and Brussels amid rising trade tensions with the United States.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic will visit Hanoi next week, diplomats said.
King Philippe usually makes no more than one state visit a year outside the European Union, according to the Belgian embassy in Hanoi.
During the visit, Belgian engineering group John Cockerill signed provisional, non binding agreements with Vietnamese partners for the production of green hydrogen, a fuel obtained from water through a process powered by renewable energy sources.
A spokesman for the Belgian firm said the agreements were the first step for a possible investment in a Vietnam factory to manufacture pressurised alkaline water electrolysers, which are machines used to produce hydrogen.
The factory would serve the entire Southeast Asian region, the spokesman said declining to quantify the possible investment.
Vietnam plans to have installed by mid-century plants for the production of about 15 gigawatts of electricity from hydrogen, according to the latest draft of the country’s revised long-term power plan, dated February 2025.
That is a slight downward revision from a previous target of at least 16.4 GW, and would account for about 2% of the total planned installed capacity by 2050.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
