The Vietnamese Embassy has joined other embassies of ASEAN countries in Canada in a sports competition to increase mutual understanding and cooperation between the bloc’s members.

The sports competition was one of the activities held on “ASEAN family day” which is an annual event for the embassies in Canada.

Members of staff from the embassies of Indonesia, Brunei , Malaysia and Thailand competed at golf, table tennis, badminton and bowling. The awards ceremony was held on Dec. 7.

So far seven ASEAN countries, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines , Thailand and Vietnam have opened embassies in Canada.

Bilateral trade between ASEAN and Canada reached 14.5 billion USD in 2008.

By the end of 2008, Canada had invested 8.2 billion USD in the bloc and the North American country has now included ASEAN on its list of 13 prioritised markets./.