(VOVWORLD) - Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his French counterpart Edouard Philippe held talks on Friday in Hanoi, where both leaders reiterated their determination to deepen the Vietnam-France Strategic Partnership for the two countries’ interests.
They said economic cooperation continues to be a pillar in bilateral ties and stressed the need to speed up key projects and strengthen relations between Vietnam and the EU. The two PMs agreed to encourage businesses from both sides to boost investment cooperation in infrastructure, energy, aviation, space, science-technology, and communications.
Both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in security and defense, visits of France’s naval ships to Vietnam, and support their participation in the UN peace keeping missions. They underlined the importance of cooperation in education and training, including developing the Hanoi University of Science and Technology to the international level.
The Vietnamese and French PMs pledged to ensure the success of the 11th meeting on cooperation between localities of the two countries slated for early April, 2019, in Toulouse.
Also on Friday, Prime Minister Phuc and Prime Minister Philippe witnessed the signing and exchange of agreements between Vietnam and France in training, e-government, healthcare, climate change response, and environmental protection.
France is Vietnam’s fifth biggest trade partner with two-way trade totaling 4.6 billion USD last year. Trade reached 2.3 billion USD in the first half of this year.
Vietnam ranks second in France’s list of ODA beneficiaries in Asia with total committed capital of 18.4 billion USD since 1993.