(VOVworld) – The Embassy of Luxemburg has announced a series of events to mark the 40^th anniversary of diplomatic ties and the 20^th anniversary of development partnership with Vietnam. At a media conference in Hanoi on Monday, the Embassy of Luxemburg said the activities will take place from June 17 to 21, including talks on tourism development in Vietnam, a finance and banking forum and culture exchanges. A special concert at the Hanoi Opera House on June 12 will be the culmination of the celebrations. Ambassador of  Luxemburg Marc Thill said: “For us it’s a very important year, 2013, because we are not only celebrating 40 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries, but also we are celebrating 20 years of relations in the development cooperation field. Concerning the cultural events, all those events are co-productions between Luxemburg and Vietnamese artists, so we could have had it easier perhaps if we had simply asked some Luxemburg artists to come, produce and perform in Vietnam, but we wanted to have cooperation between artists from both sides and we want to present this cooperation to the Vietnamese people and to friends of Luxemburg in Vietnam”.

Vietnam and Luxemburg established bilateral diplomatic ties on November 15, 1973. Luxemburg invests about 1.1 billion USD in Vietnam, ranking 4^th in the EU. Its non-refundable aid to Vietnam has reached 42 million USD in the 2011-2015 period.