Szejnfeld, who led a Polish business delegation to Vietnam seeking business opportunities informed his Vietnamese colleagues that Poland would provide a soft loan of US$280 million to support joint projects in shipbuilding and mining.

“We hope that these projects will be operational by next year, when Poland and Vietnam celebrate 60 years of diplomatic ties,” he said.

The Polish official also mentioned other fields of cooperation in the near future, including environmental protection, the chemical industry and energy.

Deputy Minister Le Danh Vinh stressed that Vietnam wishes to cooperate with Polish businesses in the oil and gas, cooking processing, education and training sectors.

During their visit, from June 15-16, the delegation, with representatives from 13 Polish firms, met with Vietnamese enterprises in the shipbuilding and mining industries as well as providers of vocational training for the shipbuilding sector.

According to Adam Szejnfeld, two-way trade between Poland and Vietnam has seen a strong growth in the past few years.

In 2008, the figure was $640 million, $500 million more than the target set by both governments for 2010.

Source: VNA