France, Viet Nam's partner in development
Paris, Oct. 29 (VNA) -- France is Viet Nam's leading partner in development, trade exchange, investment, health care, education, personnel training and tourism, said President Tran Duc Luong.
Luong, arrived in Paris on Monday for a four-day official visit to France, held talks with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris on Tuesday.
The two presidents informed each other of the situation in their respective countries, exchanged views on the future of the Viet Nam-France relationship and international and regional issues of common concern.
Luong briefed his French counterpart on Viet Nam's socio-economic development strategy, its foreign policy of openness, diversification, multilateralisation and active integration into regional and international economies.
He expressed his wish to bring the fine time-honoured cooperative ties between Viet Nam and France to a new scale, particularly in the fields that France have strong potentials, namely transport and communications, telecommunications, energy, food processing and pharmaceutical industries and tourism.
He thanked President Jacques Chirac, the French Government and people for their active assistance to Viet Nam in improving relations with international financial-monetary institutions, signing cooperation agreements with the European Union, and support for Viet Nam's renewal process and relationship with the EU.
France considered its cooperation development with Viet Nam as a priority in France's Asian policy and would continue assisting Viet Nam's renewal process and its international economic integration, President Chirac affirmed.
France would provide Viet Nam with its development aid in different forms and stressed that France would continue encouraging French companies to expand trade relations with Viet Nam, he said.
The French President highly valued Viet Nam's selection of France to be an important country for personnel training cooperation and expressed his delight at the signing of many cooperation agreements during Luong's visit to France.
Chirac affirmed France's support for further cooperation between Viet Nam and the European Union, Viet Nam's bidding to join the World Trade Organisation and Viet Nam's campaign for non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the 2008-2009 term.
Both host and guest agreed to promote the exchange of high-level delegations' visits, establish mechanisms for cooperation in different domains at all levels with the aim of bringing the two countries' relationship to a new stage.
Luong invited Chirac to visit Viet Nam and the latter accepted the invitation with pleasure.
After the talks, President Jacques Chirac presented the French Government's Legion of Honour to President Tran Duc Luong.
Also the same day, President Luong attended a meeting between Vietnamese and French businesspeople. He thanked the French employers' federation for organising the meeting, and expressed his wish to boost economic cooperation between the two countries. At the event, participants discussed measures to accelerate the implementation of documents signed by the two countries.
Viet Nam, Luong affirmed, is willing to create most favourable conditions for foreign investors to do business in Viet Nam, citing its efforts to improve investment environment, simplify procedures, ameliorate infrastructure, renew financial and banking system, and increase training human resource.
France now ranks sixth among Viet Nam's foreign investors with 120 projects capitalising at more than 2 billion USD. There are nearly 200 French companies and enterprises operating in 30 provinces and cities nationwide.
President Tran Duc Luong also visited the Paris Administrative Hall the same day.
