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| Francois Hollande (Image: Wiki Commons) |
The upcoming State visit to Vietnam by French President Francois Hollande from September 5-7 aims to promote the bilateral strategic partnership.
During the visit, the first to Vietnam by a French President since 2004, the two sides will review their cooperation and seek further political ties and delegation exchanges.
They will also look to improve the efficiency of bilateral cooperation and accelerate joint economic projects, especially in infrastructure, climate change adaptation, science-technology, health and agriculture.
The two countries will sign a number of new cooperation agreements in politics, economy, science-technology, agriculture and judicial affairs as well as exchange regional and international issues of mutual concern.
Vietnam and France established diplomatic ties at the ambassador level on April 12, 1973. The relationship entered into a new period since the historic visit to Vietnam by French President Francois Mitterrand in 1993 and has been consolidated by visits of the two countries’ leaders in the following years.
The two nations signed a joint statement on their strategic partnership on the occasion of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to France in September 2013.
They have fruitfully implemented various cooperation mechanisms such as the diplomacy-defence strategic dialogue, the annual high-level economic dialogue and the cooperation conference between Vietnamese and French localities.
France is Vietnam’s fifth largest trade partner in Europe, just behind Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy, with two-way trade reaching 4.2 billion USD in 2015, up 19 percent year-on-year. The figure stood at 919 million USD in the first quarter of this year.
Read the full story at VietnamNet