Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan met with Belgian Crown Prince Philippe inHanoi on Mar. 12 during his six-day official visit to Vietnam ,starting on from Mar. 11.
Vice President Doan said that Vietnamalways attaches importance to boosting friendship and multifacetedcooperation with Belgium , an important partner of Vietnam in theEuropean Union.
She described the visit as an important milestonein the development of the fine relations between the two countries,especially when Vietnam and Belgium approach the celebration ofthe 40 th anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2013.
Crown PrincePhilippe expressed his impression of Vietnam ’s achievements in thenational renewal process, which helped improve the country’s position inthe region and the world.
The two sides expressed pleasure atthe active development of their relations in all fields, particularly inpolitics, diplomacy, economics, cooperative development, education andtraining.
The two sides agreed to continue exchanging delegationsat all levels, while cooperating at international and multilateralforums, especially at the UN and under the framework of ASEM andASEAN-EU.
They also agreed to continue boosting cooperationbetween regions and localities of the two countries and creatingfavourable conditions for their enterprises to seek business andinvestment opportunities.
They highly appreciated theimplementation of cooperative projects and plan to continue tocoordinate the implementation of projects under the Vietnam-BelgiumCooperation Programme in 2011-2015, focusing on education and training,water resource management, irrigation and waste treatment.
VicePresident Doan thanked the Belgium Government and people for theirassistance, especially the increase of development assistance from 35million EUR to 60 million EUR for the 2011-2015 period. She askedBelgium to continue considering Vietnam as a priority incooperative development policy with a focus on human resource trainingcombined with scientific and technological development and applications.
CrownPrince Philippe informed the host that accompanying him are manyBelgium businessmen and deans of universities, showing that the Belgiangovernment, regions and community are aiming to boost cooperation withVietnam . He affirmed a commitment to continued support andcooperation between Belgium and Vietnam in future.
Afterthe meeting, Vice President Doan and Crown Prince Philippe witnessed thesigning of four cooperative documents between the two countries.
They included the protocol on the amendment to the agreement onavoidance of double taxation and memorandums of understanding betweenthe finance ministries and the science and technology ministries and theBelgian Government’s letter on its provision of an additional 3 millionEuro to the 63 million Euro credit meant for the VNREDSat-1B project.
Thesame day, Crown Prince Philippe and the business delegation visitedHanoi National University . The delegation brings about 300businessmen from more than 100 enterprises specialising in management ofwater and waste, transport, logistics, space technology and healthcare.-VNA