Bangladeshi President’s Vietnam visit to reinforce bilateral ties

Bangladeshi President Md. Abdul Hamid  (Source: indiatvnews.com)

Bangladeshi President Md. Abdul Hamid is on a State visit to Vietnam from August 9-13 at the invitation of President Truong Tan Sang.

The visit aims to reinforce traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, share economic development experience, especially in agriculture and personnel training as well as discuss regional and global issues of shared concern.

Vietnam and Bangladesh officially established their diplomatic ties on February 17, 1973. Since the 1990s, they have facilitated visits at all levels.

Two-way trade between the two nations hit 800 million USD in 2014, about 650 million USD of which was Vietnam’s exports. The figure neared 310 million USD in the first half of this year.

Vietnam mainly exported clinker, cement, iron and steel, fiber, textile, plastics, rattan, rubber, computers, electronics and wooden furniture to Bangladesh while importing pharmaceuticals, garment raw materials, machinery, electronic spare parts and urea fertiliser.

As of June 2015, Bangladesh had three valid projects worth more than 5.4 million USD in Vietnam, ranking 88th out of 103 countries and territories investing in the country.

Bangladesh has pledged top priority to Vietnamese investment in electricity, information technology, shoe manufacturing, infrastructure and cultivation.

The two nations have signed a number of cooperation agreements across economics, science-technology and aviation and facilitated visits by delegations from national defence, culture-sports-tourism, and labour and social affairs sectors. Bangladesh also shared its experience in United Nations peacekeeping operations with Vietnam.

On joint efforts at regional and global forums, Bangladesh backed Vietnam’s bid for non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 2008-2009 tenure and entry to the World Trade Organisation, the UN Human Rights Council for the 2014-2016 tenure and recognised Vietnam as a full market economy.-VNA