A meeting was held in Hanoi on August 5 to celebrate the 35 th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-Thailand diplomatic ties.

Addressing the function held by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations and the Vietnam-Thailand Friendship Organisation, Ta Quang Ngoc, Chairman of the Vietnam-Thailand Friendship Organisation, reviewed the friendship and cooperation between the two countries over the past 35 years, highlighting significant steps of development in bilateral economic ties and trade.

The two countries increased economic links within the frameworks of sub-regional cooperation and ASEAN. Along with promoting bilateral cooperation in politics, economics, culture, science-technology, people-to-people relations have been boosted, bringing practical efficiency in recent years.

Thai Ambassador to Vietnam Anuson Chinvanno noted the similarities in culture, lifestyle and thinking of Thailand and Vietnam , describing them as an important foundation to help rapid development in bilateral cooperation in many fields to benefit the two countries’ people, particularly in trade, investment and tourism.

Vietnam was Thailand ’s fourth most important trading partner among ASEAN countries and ninth in the world.

Thais continued to invest in Vietnam , bringing the total investment in the neighbouring country to 5.8 billion USD. Thailand now ranked tenth among countries investing in Vietnam .

Additionally, in 2010, about 400,000 Vietnamese people visited Thailand and about 240,000 Thai visitors arrived in Vietnam .

Also on the same day in Hanoi , the Vietnam-Thailand Friendship Association and the Thailand-Vietnam Friendship Association held their second joint meeting to review each society’s operations and propose joint activities to promote the relations, increase friendship and mutual understanding between the two people and the two countries.

The associations agreed to maintain and accelerate activities on the occasion of major holidays and festivals of the two countries, promote tourism, arrange fact-finding visits. They said they will work to encourage language study for both countries’ students, and organise business groups to survey roads in order to promote potential in goods transport and tourism of routes in the East-West Corridor from Thailand to Vietnam via Laos .

Later on the day, Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan met a delegation of the Thailand-Vietnam Friendship Association led by First Vice Chairman Prapansak Bhatayanond.

She highly valued the role of both countries’ friendship associations in developing bilateral relations, serving as a bridge of friendship and cooperation between the people and businesses of the two countries./.