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President
Nguyen Minh Triet and his wife started a State visit to
Singapore today at the invitation of Singaporean President
Sellapan Ramanathan Nathan.
The first
State visit to Singapore by President Nguyen Minh Triet
reaffirms that Vietnam’s policy always attaches great
importance to comprehensive co-operation with Singapore.
This is also in return for Vietnam visit made by Singaporean
President S R Nathan in February, 2008, and also helps
promote and deepen further the fine co-operation and
relations between Vietnam and Singapore, consolidating the
close ties between the leaders of the two countries.
The friendly
relations and comprehensive co-operation between Vietnam and
Singapore have been developing in all fields, including
politics, trade, investment, culture, education, tourism and
others. Vietnam and Singapore established diplomatic
relations in 1973. After Vietnam joined the Bali Treaty in
July 1992 and became a full member of the ASEAN in July
1995, the bilateral relations entered a new stage of
development. Singapore has attached great its importance to
co-operation with Vietnam.
On his
working visit to Singapore by Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan
Van Khai in March 2004, the two sides signed the “Joint
Statement on the Comprehensive Co-operation Framework in the
21st Century”, creating the legal foundation and favourable
conditions to further enhance the bilateral friendly
relations and multi-faceted co-operation. The fine relations
have been marked by high-level visits between the two sides,
including the recent Singapore visit by Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung in August 2007, Singaporean Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong’s Vietnam visit to attend the 14th APEC
Summit in November 2006 and the Vietnam official visit in
February 2008 by Singaporean President S R Nathan.
Singapore is
one of the leading trading and investment partners of
Vietnam. Singapore’s major projects in Vietnam have brought
about fruitful results. Particularly the Vietnam – Singapore
Industrial Park in the southern province of Binh Duong has
become an exemplary model for investment and co-operation
between Vietnam and foreign businesses. In 2008, the two-way
trade turnover reached around US $ 12 billion, highest ever
with a 23% increase as compared with that in 2007.
Vietnam has
become one of Singapore’s key trade and investment markets
in Southeast Asia. The two countries have deployed in an
active manner the Framework Agreement on linking the two
economies of Vietnam and Singapore signed in December 2005
in six areas, including finance, investment, trade-service,
transport, post and telecommunication and information
technology, and education and training. The two sides also
agreed to consider the ability of expansion to other fields.
The bilateral
co-operation in education and culture has been strengthened.
As of this year, as many as 7,000 Vietnamese students have
studied in Singapore. Thirteen schools and collages of the
two countries have been twinned so far and efforts have been
made to increase the number to between 15 and 20 in the
coming time.
The
co-operation in tourism between Vietnam and Singapore has
seen great potential. In 2008, Vietnam welcomed 160,000
Singaporean visitors, a 17% increased as compared with the
same period last year. Meanwhile, the number of Vietnamese
tourists to the “lion island” country reached 239,000, 17%
up in comparison with the same period last year. Being the
ASEAN members, Vietnam and Singapore have joined hands to
accelerate the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015
and the formulation and implementation of ASEAN Charter as
well as speeding up bilateral co-operation at forums of ASEM,
APEC, the UN and other international forums.
May the State
visit to Singapore by President Nguyen Minh Triet be crowned
with success, thus deepening further the friendship and
multi-faceted co-operation between Vietnam and Singapore for
mutual benefit of the two peoples, for peace, stability,
co-operation and development in the Southeast Asian region
and the world.
Nhan Dan |
