Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the host counterpart Gordon Brown agreed to enhance multi-faceted cooperation relations in a wide range of fields and issued a joint statement with the focus on trade and investment and cooperation on migration, organized crimes.
In terms of political, diplomatic and development cooperation, the two prime ministers discussed current international issues with Vietnam’s election to the UN Security Council, including the council agenda, the UN reform process, measures to maximize impacts of globalization, U.K.’s support for Vietnam in enhancing comprehensive ties with EU, tackling climate change.
PM Gordon Brown admired Vietnam’s economic achievement in the 20-year renewal process with poverty reduction to 15 per cent from 60 per cent, the record high. The U.K. will contribute at least £250 million (USUS$500 million) in aid to Vietnam between 2006 and 2011, being the EU’s biggest donor of the Southeast Asian country.
Mr. Brown agreed to provide £100 million (US$200 million) to Vietnam’s poverty reduction strategy as part of its commitments under DFID’s new Country Assistance Plan up to 2011, the Vietnam News said.
Regarding trade and investment areas, the two PMs welcomed expanding investment and trade ties. The bilateral trade reached nearly US$1.7 billion last year, and the U.K. continues to be one among the EU’s largest investors in Vietnam with the FDI total value of US$1.5 billion. Vietnam is one among the U.K.’s 17 prioritized markets in the world.
So far U.K. businesses and Vietnamese partners signed deals worth US$5 billion, including contracts of BP, International Power, Salamander, Premier Oil, Mott McDonald, Tesco, SOCO and BHP Billiton.
In terms of vocational and education fields, Mr. Dung and Mr. Brown okayed the signature of a country-to-country agreement fostering international exchanges and capacity improvement in education. Mr. Dung informed Mr. Brown on the government of Vietnam’s decision to permit the establishment of the Apollo University in Vietnam in cooperation with University of London.
The British Prime Minister’s Second Initiative will support bilateral institutional partnerships in vocational education and training. In the next three years, between 40 and 60 new school links between Vietnam and the U.K. will be established. The U.K. will help raise the standards of English language by improving skills of the existing 6,500 primary school English language teachers and training 13,000 new teachers.
The two PMs emphasized the importance of legal migration and pledged to increase joint efforts to minimize the harm caused to both countries by illegal migration, drug and human trafficking, organized crime. The two leaders also agreed to review progress of the MOU on migration issues and extend it for another five years, and instructed relevant agencies of both sides to work in detail and sign the agreement on U.K.’s package of measures to combat illegal migration.
The two PMs agreed to facilitate signing of a Prisoner Transfer Agreement to allow prisoners to serve their sentence in their home communities. (Labor, The People, VNS)
Vietnamese
