Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet’s visits to certain European countries is yielding positive economic results. President Triet visited Russia, Belarus, Switzerland and Finland from May 8-22.

President Triet witnessed a signing ceremony between Vietnamese and Finnish in Helsinki.

Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet’s visits to certain European countries is yielding positive economic results. President Triet visited Russia, Belarus, Switzerland and Finland from May 8-22.

Wrapping up last week, Triet’s visits to Russia, including Kalmykia, and Belarus bore fruit. In Russia, after attending the Moscow-based 65th anniversary of the victory over fascism, Triet met with Latvian President Vandis Zatlers, who said Latvia sought to expand its cooperation with Vietnam in garments, seacooking, food and food processing, education and pharmaceuticals because the world was experiencing food and energy-related challenges.

Triet said Vietnam would like to deepen its relationship with Latvia, especially in economics and trade, and would offer favourable conditions to Latvian businesses in Vietnam. The president also saw opportunities for cooperation with Kalmykia in the oil and gas, agricultural and labour sectors.

At high-level talks with Triet, Kalmykia’s President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said his country had large oil and gas reserves, and the two sides could cooperate in oil and gas exploitation and producing nitrogenous fertiliser in service of Vietnam’s agriculture. Kalmykia was Russia’s major agricultural product exporter, thus Kalmykia and Vietnam could also cooperate in producing rice to sell in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union, he said.

President Ilyumzhinov said he had already talked with Russia’s Federal Migration Service to allow large quotas for Vietnamese to work in Kalmykia’s garment factories and to further import Vietnamese garments.

Ilyumzhinov suggested that Vietnam consider Kalmykiav as a gateway for Vietnam’s goods into Russia and the European markets.

Triet said Vietnam had sought cooperation opportunities with Kalmykia and it was feasible for the two sides to boost cooperation over fertiliser production and agriculture. He then asked Vietnam’s related ministries to prepare some specific projects, expected to be inked during Ilyumzhinov’s forthcoming visit to Vietnam.

President Triet also asked the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to delve into Ilyumzhinov’s suggestion to send Vietnamese workers to Kalmykia.

During his official visit to Belarus, Triet and Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko inked a Vietnam-Belarus joint statement and witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation agreements, including an agreement on the protection of secret information and a framework agreement on agricultural cooperation between Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Belarusian Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Other agreements included a cooperation agreement between Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Belarus, an inter-government memorandum of understanding on mutual recognition of each other’s market economy status, an agreement on information sharing and supervision of banking operations between the State Bank of Vietnam and the National Bank of Belarus, and a deal between Vietnam’s Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park and the national Hi-tech Park of Belarus.

Triet and Lukashenko also agreed to enhance cooperation on manufacturing automobiles, diesel engines, power generators, tractors and lorries. Other areas for further cooperation included culture, education and training, oil and gas, agriculture, banking, tourism, health care and labour.

During his official visit to Switzerland and his head-of-the state visit to Finland this week, president Triet witnessed the signing of many documents about boosting economic, trade and investment cooperation between Vietnam and these two countries.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2009, Vietnam’s two-way trade turnover was $1.83 billion with Russia, $120 million with Belarus, nearly $2.8 billion with Switzerland and $230 million with Finland.

As of April 20, Russia had 64 projects in Vietnam with total registered investment capital of $749 million, ranking 23rd of 81 countries and investing in Vietnam. Switzerland had 75 projects worth $1.44 billion, ranking 17th and Finland had five projects worth $33.32 million.

Source: VIR