Vietnam is always willing to expand cooperation for development in the
spirit of equality and mutual benefit with African countries, State
President Nguyen Minh Triet affirmed.
Vietnam can share with
friends from African countries its experience in agricultural
development, particularly agricultural production and food security,
poverty reduction, health care development and education, the President
said while receiving head delegates of African countries and
international organisations to the Vietnam-Africa International Seminar
in Hanoi on August 17.
He expressed his pleasure with new
developments in economic cooperation and trade exchange between
Vietnam and African countries over the past six years, after the first
meeting to discuss cooperation between the two sides took place.
Two-way
trade between the two sides rose from 600 million USD to 3 billion USD
over the period. However, the figure did not reflect their potential and
strength.
The President said he wants participants to the
ongoing seminar to have a detailed assessment of issues, to discuss and
seek practical lessons and experiences and to increase economic
cooperation and trade between the partners.
Vietnam
will spare no effort to develop cooperation with each African country as
well as with the community of African countries, he assured.
President
Triet thanked the United Nations Deputy General Secretary, Cheick Sidi
Diarra, for his presence at the seminar and highly spoke of the UN’s
role in facilitating and promoting cooperation between Vietnam and
African countries, particularly its support of a number of social
security development programmes such as poverty reduction, health care
and education.
The UN official hailed Vietnam as host of the seminar and said he believes in a bright future for the bilateral ties.
He
expressed his admiration at Vietnam ’s achievements in its national
development renewal process, saying that the country’s lessons will be
useful for African nations.
Also on the sidelines of the seminar,
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem had bilateral
meetings with UN Deputy General Secretary Cheick Sidi Diarra and the
ministers of several African countries, affirming his wish to promote
relations between Vietnam and African nations.
They discussed concrete measures to increase cooperation in politics, economics, trade, agriculture, education and healthcare./.
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